Give Up The Ghost
by ChanelAddict
Summary: What if Bucky didn't fall? What if Steve still made the ultimate sacrifice? What if that left Peggy and Bucky alone in a world without the guy they both loved? And what happens when Steve comes back? Eventual MMF OT3. James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers.
1. Chapter 1

What if Bucky didn't fall? What if Steve still made the ultimate sacrifice? What if that left Peggy and Bucky alone in a world without the guy they both loved? And what happens when Steve comes back?

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><p><strong>A notion of 'hey what if Bucky didn't fall but Steve still ~died' from a friend led to this. Eventual poly everything because Surprise!Steve and Howard is the Where's Wally champ of the 50s. Bucky and Peggy resolve their issues, drink a lot of questionably tasting alcohol and find there are feelings. Hopefully this is the start of an interesting journey! ThoughtsReviews encouraged if you fancy! xo**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Be seeing you<strong>

Packing was always something Peggy found cathartic, while most hated it, she was a pro. Having done it on and off for years with boarding school, she loved it, as it symbolised a trip of some kind, a new place and new people.

Had it been a year? She thought, as she packed her bag for Washington, folding her freshly pressed blouses into her small case. Of course it had been a year, she had counted and been aware of every single slowly passing day between where she stood and then. But, she had a personal mission of sorts now, an action many might see as a waste of her time, or pointless, considering. But they were actions she needed to take. The fact that there was a grave at all was important, even if they never did recover his body, the grave was a symbol of his sacrifice. And as a mark of what he meant to her, she would vow to visit when she could but at the least once a year on the day he saved the world.

The summer of 1945 was one of celebration for the world, the war was won and a hero saved them all from utter destruction. He was hailed a saviour and there were posters and stories, interviews and countless questions. But as things go, time passed and people, as they do, moved on. The kids still played with toy shields in games of heroic fiction, it made her smile to see when she would pass one or two on the street still. He would have liked that, she thought. He would have blushed, but he would have liked that. While the world celebrated, she and those who knew and loved him mourned. Their jobs were done now; they could go home, start a life. But what life did she have when it was meant to be with him? What life now that every option, every suitor was unsuitable simply because they just weren't him?

The first year had been the worst, the mostly lonely she could remember, as she packed up her life in London for a permanent move to the States, to Brooklyn. A small gesture, but one that made her feel as close to him as she could get, such as things were.

She liked the community there, and their warm welcome to her once they found out she had worked with one of their own, one that they now claimed as a gone-too-soon son of Brooklyn. Like most things when it came to Steve's legacy now, it was meant well but did very little to ease her aching heart.

She took a four day leave from her work, the absence of the job not something she welcomed, but the absence of the men she was forced to work with, a blessing. Making the drive to Washington allowed her time to simply decompress her worries and stresses. Of course, as always time alone allowed her too much time to think.

_As was all too often lately._

It had been raining on and off all morning, but she was determined to do what she came to the city to do. So, finding a store and choosing some modest but appropriate red roses, she drove herself off to Arlington. Dozens of people were scattered at various graves, all in a state of mourning or remembrance. It gave her tiny warmth to know at least, she wasn't alone in her emotions, as it so often seemed in the dark cold of the night.

She wasn't alone in the graveyard, and as soon as she came up to where the memorial stood, she realised she wasn't alone there either.

James Barnes sat just to the side, on the grass, and truth be told she almost didn't recognise him.

When he heard the footsteps approach, he stood and it was then she noticed the half empty bottle of whiskey in hand. He was a mess; physically his hair had grown longer – longer than regulation allowed, as was his week old beard. His clothes, once as shiny and straight as a new pin – even at the worst of times, she recalled he held himself to the same standard as Steve, uniform was always regulation perfection. Now, he looked tired and older than his years, his eyes rimmed red with tears or the alcohol, she wasn't sure which. Both, she assumed. He looked as lonely as she felt.

"Agent Carter, this is a surprise." He said in way of greeting, noting the flowers in her hands, and giving her the once over that reminded her of the way he had done so in that bar in London what felt like a lifetime ago.

"Sergeant Barnes, it's nice to see you again."

He cocked a brow at her then, a smirk dying on his face.

"Looks like we're not the only ones coming to see him lately," He commented and it was then she noticed, the memorial was covered in flowers, letters and ribbons, notes of thanks, and yet more flowers.

"Oh my…" she gasped, overwhelmed.

"I've been here a while, haven't read half of what's here. I guess people be a lot more appreciative than I give 'em credit for." He was damp, his hair slicked back, his clothes showing signs that he had been there more than the time he suggested. The image of him standing in the rain alone was one that chilled her heart.

"I suppose so. They have a lot to be thankful to him for, we all do."

He was silent and she looked at him then, he took a small swig of his bottle, clearly not caring about decorum.

"If you say so." He added bitterly.

She sighed, ignoring him while placing her flowers in a sign of respect.

"You know he was allergic to pollen?" Barnes commented with a small cold laugh, "Hell, that kid was allergic to just about _every_ damn thing. It's a miracle he made it as long as he did."

She knew he didn't mean to be rude, or, hell, maybe he did, but she hadn't missed his utterly dismissive attitude toward her. When it came down to it, she knew James Barnes didn't like her much, if at all, never had done. For a long time she couldn't quite figure out why that was. Until the day Steve died. Barnes had been forced on medical leave, the incident with the train hadn't just broken his arm in five places, and almost leaving it mangled, but had done a number on him psychologically. Not that he ever would have admitted it to anyone. On the Captain's orders, and reorders, and a shouting match heard half way across the base, he was encouraged to stay behind as the rest of the unit took on the Red Skull. Much to his bitter disappointment and during the time of their absence, constant ranting at how it was 'stupid as shit' that he was left behind because of a few broken bones. He was healing faster than normal, she had noticed, but it was just one more thing he wasn't willing to talk about, at least not with her. But he was in the control room with her when Steve made the heart-breaking announcement that he was trapped with no way out and no other way to stop the world from ending other than to put the plane in the ground. Distraught she tried to convince him with gentle suggestion and encouragement, whereas Barnes just flat out lost his mind. All colour drained from his face as she sobbed, as he yelled at Steve to stop being a 'goddamn martyr' to 'let someone else be the hero and come home you idiot', the spoken and unspoken bond and love between them those last moments was obvious to her, as it was that it went far beyond any brotherhood love.

"Drink?" he offered her after several long minutes of silent reflection, the bottle he was nursing didn't look so appealing.

"No thank you." She replied, maybe a little too sharply for his tastes.

He frowned before taking a swig.

"You just looked like you could use something to warm your bones. And I was brought up a gentleman, no matter what you may think of me, I was taught to share."

She wondered if things had ended differently that day, just how willing he would have been to share. She pushed that thought aside with a sigh.

"You look dreadful by the way."

"_Thanks_. You Brits are real charmers anyone ever tell you that?"

"I prefer bluntly honest, but that in itself has its own charm." She smiled then, before it quickly died on her lips, it felt false, it was false. "Is that all you've been living on lately?" She nodded to the bottle as he took another healthy gulp with a shrug.

"It works."

"When was the last time you ate something proper?" She wasn't worried about him, she wasn't. She had no right to be.

"I've survived longer than this on a helluva lot less, don't worry about me darlin'."

"I don't. I just know that _he_ would have."

That earned her a glare then, a hard one before he seemed to remember those hard learned manners and shook his head, blinking hard.

"Don't. Just don't."

She broke contact with his bloodshot blue eyes then, focusing on the memorial text, which hailed Captain America a hero to the world. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Well." She said to no one or maybe to herself before she took a step back. "I must be getting back," she didn't need to. She was just going back to her hotel room to be alone, as usual, but standing there with him wasn't doing either of them much good either. "It'll rain again soon I imagine," she looked skyward and then to Barnes, who was lost in thoughts staring at the same memorial text. She held out her umbrella.

"Here, you'll need it more than I will."

His face softened then before he shook his head.

"No ma'am that's not necessary."

She left it by his feet, taking another step back, and then another.

"I was taught to share too, use it, to stop you getting ill at the very least."

With a few more steps backward she turned away from the sad figure by the pseudo-grave.

"Thank you." He called after her and she just turned quickly, this time wearing a more genuine smile before nodding.

"Goodbye Sergeant."

He scratched the back of his neck then.

"Yeah, be seein' you, Agent Carter."

And she would, though it would be later rather than sooner as it turned out, a year to the day to be exact.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The next year was a rather eventful one for Peggy professionally at least. She went from loathing her job – being treated like a piece of pretty furniture rather than a useful, competent agent, to teaming up with Stark full time, working together piecing together the foundations for what they hoped would be a new and better future in Intelligence. It wasn't easy, but she hated easy, she loved a challenge, heading to bed at night her head so full of ideas and plans, her body wrung out from exhaustion. It was appealing in more ways than just the workload, it kept her mind busy, which kept it from wandering, which thankfully put to rest – at least for a time – her grief and sadness. That she allowed now only in the late of the night, it crept in even when she willed it not to. But, for the most part she was able to compartmentalise her problems. The job came first, and once she had her priorities straight it was a brave or stupid man who would even dare deter her from her tasks.

For Bucky it was different, for a time after the war he had considered going back to the army, in some capacity, just to keep busy. But he looked at the uniform hanging in his closet, next to Steve's and just couldn't make himself do it. For the first few months it was a rootless, drunken stupor, as he moved out of Brooklyn as far away from their old haunts as he could and still be in New York, technically. He had taken up a job at a textile factory, one he knew he was lucky to get, considering the demand for jobs jumped as the men who managed to actually survive war had to contend just surviving life on the return. He knew he was what they called 'shell shocked', knew most of his men were too, no one came back from a war the same man after all. But his concern laid less with his mind and more what they did to his body. What Zola did, what exactly was in those injections and drips, what they did to him when he lost days of time, waking up for seconds only to be put under again? He battled with that daily and nightly more than the guilt of killing, less than the grief of losing Steve.

All in all his mind kept him too busy for his body to do much else other than barely survive.

_Steve would be furious._

Seeing Agent Carter at the memorial was a surprise and not all at once. He had thought about her over the course of the year since he had last seen her, since he stormed out of that control room holding back sobs, unable to breathe, showing no concern for her or what a shock she had also just received. Hindsight left him feeling like an asshole, but at the time it was as if he had tunnel vision, and felt as though his heart was being ripped from his chest.

She hadn't changed much in the year, not that he had expected her too. She was a little paler, her hair a little longer; noticeable absence of her trademark red lips too, now in their place a more natural shade of dusk rose.

She was still that frightening yet beautiful porcelain covered steel.

The discomfort he felt around her was still very real. He didn't fear her because she was a strong woman capable of ending his existence with a mere look, no. He feared her because of the feelings she invoked within him, always had done.

She had seen Steve for who he really was, the first woman to actually do so, and he knew then that he never stood a chance with her in the picture. With her, Steve was able to have a real life, a normal life with no dark corners, no dirty little secrets.

And he was the ultimate dirty little secret.

And she knew that now, she knew – she had to have done – neither he nor Steve had cared about hiding their feelings in his last moments, regardless if it was only her or a hundred people in that room. It wouldn't have changed his words in the end.

'I love you, I need you, please don't do this, please come home, Steve. Please.'

But she didn't treat him like he was dirty or wrong, not then when she treated him with the same professional coldness reserved for anyone but Steve, and maybe Philips – their father daughter relationship had always amused him somewhat. But now, it was just them, and seeing her there knocked the breath out of his lungs for longer than he cared to admit. They were two people who could not be more different in every way.

Every way except one, they both loved and mourned the one guy it seemed neither of them could live a full life without.

And that was something Bucky hadn't had in a long time, someone with mutual life experience.

The next year passed in the same hazy blur as the one before, he got drunk too often, slept too late, ate too little and felt and looked like hell because of it, though the struggle to care was very real. He made the same trip as the year before, this time taking a little more care with his clothes – clean and pressed for a change, and a few other things just in case.

She was there before him this year; his cab dropped him off not far from where she stood, but enough of a walk that he could silently admire her from afar.

Her long hair down in soft waves that blew in the wind slightly, it was a warm enough day but the breeze wasn't unwelcome. She stood in a navy dress, stockings, and low heeled shoes in the same shade as her dress, he looked down at his suit and realised that they were accidently matching. He didn't want to wear black, was sick of black suits and crisp white shirts, of what they represented – funerals, death. Instead he was in navy and a light blue shirt, no tie; he felt more at ease though walking up to stand beside her quickly threw that ease a mile away.

"Hi there." He said, far enough away that he wouldn't scare her, though; he figured it took a lot more than that to scare a woman like her.

She smiled as she turned, her eyes glassy, her hands still holding some pretty red roses.

"I was wondering if I would see you today, how are you?"

He shrugged. Taking note of the grave, the dozens and dozens of notes were here again, though less than before. That irked him, for some reason. But, instead of focusing on that, he laid the single white rose he had bought on a whim, stupid because Steve wasn't even there. God only knew where Steve was.

"I've been okay, getting by. You?"

She nodded.

"Much the same, working mostly, avoiding life's other responsibilities the rest of the time."

She went on to explain she was working with and for Stark full time now, and that even though he tried her patience on her best days, he was still a thousand steps up from her old position.

He took a seat then, on the grass as he had done before, this time offering her a spot next to him, which surprisingly she took.

"Same old, though I have seen Dugan and Jones from time to time, just the usual shooting the shit with them –"he blushed – "Excuse me, I don't mean to –"

"Barnes, really, you think I spent all those years surrounded by burly entitled men and managed to keep an innocent school girl's vocabulary? I can swear it up with the best of them, don't be fooled."

He smiled at that, he was sure she could. He found himself wanting to see it in action.

"I'll bet. You're a real bad ass woman, Carter."

She smirked then, flipping her hair to the side of her neck, and there it was again a waft of rose and lavender. It was beautiful.

"Yes, and don't you forget it."

"In that case, I think we should raise a toast."

She looked confused for a second before he opened his coat to expose the quarter bottle of liquor stashed in his pocket, and on the other one two small glasses stacked.

She closed her eyes in exasperation and laughed.

"You brought glasses?"

He shrugged.

"Figured you were a lady after all," she interrupted him with a scoffing laugh, but he continued, "and ladies drink proper and what not."

She just rolled her eyes, not commenting on how he must have anticipated seeing here there that day. Instead, she took the glass and nodded for him to pour. He did, before he clinked glasses with her.

"To badass Dames," She cocked a brow and he nodded.

"Ladies, women, females – May we know them, may we love them, and may we have the luck to see them run the world."

She smiled at that before they drank the drab, before refilling and she watched Barnes spill some onto the ground.

"For Steve."

She nodded.

"The fucking idiot," He continued before he downed the drink in one. The drink burned the back of her throat but seemed to have zero effect on Barnes.

"You know he was such an easy drunk, not hard when you're less than a hundred pounds and a lightweight to boot, but man." He shook his head putting down the bottle "Three drinks in and he was out like a light." He spoke, lost in thought with a sad smile, "More times than I can could count had to carry him back and dump him in his bed, but he never got sick though, probably too damn polite to throw up."

Steve loved everyone when he was drunk, the bartender was his new best friend, the women of the night they'd pass on the way home were the most beautiful women he'd ever laid eyes on 'what they do to earn their crust is not our business, Buck!' he'd argue and he wasn't wrong, and his Bucky… Well .

"It annoyed him to find out he could no longer get drunk, because of the serum, he said you would find that hilarious."

He smiled then, just for a second.

"When I got back… seeing him changed it was a huge adjustment, you know? My …Steve all …well... different." He stammered before pouring himself another drink, offering her another, which she allowed. "Had to make sure he was okay, that couldn't have been easy, but he seemed fine, seemed good. Healthy for the first time in his damn life… I mean the height and the muscle and all the power was great, but one of the first things he said to me was 'Buck, I can breathe .' And that's when I stopped being worried about what it did to him, whatever else he was able to breathe and walk and hear and see perfect, everything else was just…gravy."

"He was so utterly convinced you were alive, that faith was something I hadn't witnessed before … or since. He was prepared to walk all the way there just to see, on the slight off chance that you might be alive." She shook her head with a smile, taking a small sip from her glass. "It was truly something."

"Something idiotic."

"No," she chastised him with a look and her tone; he had the sense to look abashed. "He risked everything, not to mention his life, just on the off chance –"

"I know, believe me I know, I'm sorry I just… I know Steve was a damn hero. The problem was I knew it long before he got tall and was subjected to whatever the hell you people did to him. So, believe me when I say Miss Carter, that I know what Steve Rogers was capable of. It just …never mind." He picked at some grass then, firing it to his left.

"It just wasn't fair, I understand that. He was too young, too willing to do the right thing for everyone else but himself. But, had he not, we'd all be dust right now and I don't know but for me that's a comforting fact to hold on to. I miss him and the life we might have had … might have being the operative phrase mind you. But, I miss my friend and I know you do too, and that's the bottom line."

He looked at her then, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

"That all he was? A friend?"

For some reason his tone irked her. It was almost mocking her choice of words.

"He was as much _my_ friend as he was yours."

It was as if a switch flipped then, the tension between them tripling.

"Yeah," He sounded out before taking a slug of his drink, "We're both smart enough to know that's a lie." He sighed then before speaking. "I'm not drunk enough for this conversation."

She looked onto the vast grounds before them, covered in death, and yet something beautiful and peaceful at the same time. He was helping himself to another top up, and he took discarded glass to do the same for her.

She was driving back to her hotel, she had to slow down.

"It is a conversation you should have, with someone, at some point." She offered taking the glass and taking a sip this time.

"It won't change nothin' if I talk or keep my mouth shut. It's better this way, for everyone. People don't need to be knowin' this."

He had a point, what they were both implying was still very illegal and could end badly for him. She knew Barnes thought more of Steve's reputation, even in death, than he thought for his own life. His concern and love for the other man was something she admired, whether she had the right to do so or not. After all, it wasn't any of her business.

She stood then and he squinted up at her, the mid-afternoon sun in his eyes.

"Walk with me Barnes, I need air to fade some of this alcohol before I drive back to the hotel." She held out her hand, nervous to touch him, nervous that he would reject her.

He didn't.

Instead a large, warm and surprisingly soft hand took hers as she pulled him to his feet. He offered her his elbow and she smirked.

"As I said before Miss Carter, I was raised right."

"Mmmhm," She said with a smile, taking his offer as they left the memorial and their drinks behind them and began what would turn into a twenty minute stroll around the grounds. "It's peaceful here."

"Graveyards usually are people here aren't so chatty you know what I mean?" He sassed, earning him a dig in the ribs.

"Very funny you."

He just grinned down at her. Though he was shorter than Steve just by a little, he was still a very tall, handsome man in his own right. Something about his eyes they gave him away, beyond the cocky exterior; his eyes told a much more sombre tale. He was thinner in the face than he had been even the year before, dark circles under his eyes meant no sleep or proper hydration, and judging by how his suit hung on his frame, little care for proper nutrition either.

"And if they are it would be more terrifying than social." He grinned again before they turned the corner, passing another, older couple on their way who nodded at them in way of passing.

"Such a handsome young couple, Pauline," They heard the man comment, causing them both to look at the other awkwardly, and bust out laughing. Cautiously Peggy let go of his elbow, choosing instead to walk unaided. Bucky tried not to take it personally, after all, he wasn't her type and being mistaken as such probably wasn't what she wanted. As they rounded the corner again, this time at her car, their conversation about Stark and his newest crazy innovations came to a halt.

"Listen, I'm staying at the Beaux Arts Hamilton in the city, I …well if you wanted you could drop by for dinner." She was flustered, and she hated that feeling. It wasn't like it was a date or anything of the sort thank you very much, but still; all the same she felt the anxiety rise in her body. She could kill a man from twenty feet, in the dark and in the rain, but ask one out to dinner and she's a mess.

Bloody hell.

He bit his bottom lip then, surpressing a smile.

"Oh I …"

"I mean only if you want. I hate eating alone, really so this is an entirely selfish invite." She attempted to sound casual, because it was causal damnit.

"You sure know how to make a guy feel special, Carter." And he was ribbing her, she knew it, so she just rolled her eyes as she hopped into her car.

"Oh please, your delicate sensibilities astound me, Barnes. Eat or don't eat I don't care; just know that I - a person who needs more than liquor to survive shall be eating at seven. Whether you decide to show or not." With that she closed the car door and revved the engine to life.

She ignored the fact that she was blushing hot as she drove away. Because really it was just the walking and the sun. that's all it was.

That's absolutely all it was.

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><p>Thoughts? :)<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Peggy got back to her room, ordered some tea and a newspaper and slipped out of her heels. She had vowed no work for the two days she would be in Washington, but old habits die hard and she had case files to glance over in her briefcase. A half hour call to Howard for an update and she was ready to wash up for dinner. She hadn't expected to hear from Barnes, one way or the other, but that didn't mean she wasn't hoping just a little that he might show. She wasn't sure why she suddenly cared. Maybe it was how tired he looked, how starved; for food, conversation, company. Two of those hungers she recognised quite well, the other she was thankful she was in a position to never have had to experience it. But she did care now, and once she found herself on a certain path there was little that could be done to deter it. If she took a little more time to pin her hair, or do her makeup, it was for no one but herself.

Her mother always did say that looking ones best was just good manners.

Even if she was dining alone.

She took her seat by the window and ignored the other coupled up diners, though there had been one or two men also dining alone. She bet none of them got stared down in judgement as she did, but it was par the course of her life at that point.

She ordered herself a drink and took a leisurely glance at the menu. Of course it was then that a 'gentleman' from the bar decided to make his presence known, much to her chagrin.

"Well hi there," he said, standing by her seat. She looked up slowly, trying with every second to silently vibe how uninterested she was in whatever he thought this was.

"Hello?"

"I couldn't help but notice you're here by yourself, and well, so am I."

"_Actually_ –"

"Oh you got an accent on you, that's sweet, you're English then?" He was leering and it was annoying. He wasn't even attempting to be subtle about it either.

"I am, but really –"

Her frustration was growing by the second, though the barfly seemingly didn't notice.

"It's funny," he said while taking the seat across from her. "I have a few friends across the sea now. What part of the former motherland are you from then?"

"Well –"

"No, no, let me guess, proper Dame like yourself, you look _real_ smart, educated like, and damn fine if I may say so myself."

"You may not , Sir." Peggy was seconds away from revealing the small knife she carried in her garter on her left leg.

"Aw come on, Doll. Don't be like this. I just want to offer you a drink and some company that's all."

With that her own drink arrived, which she accepted gracefully.

"As you can see I'm just fine for drinks, _and_ for company."

"I don't see anyone here with you –"

"_Honey_! I am so sorry I'm late. Traffic was absolute murder, a truck overturned on the … well it's not important." At that he came sweeping in, kissing her sweetly on the cheek before leaning back with a smile. He smelled like soap and toothpaste, a nice change for him.

"Uh, can I help you with something, Pal?"

Barfly looked between Peggy and Barnes before raising his brows.

"Uh, no I was just –"

"In my seat and in the way, from the looks of things? Seems to me the lady was making it real clear she had no desire for your company. You a gentleman that can't take no for an answer?"

"N-No?"

"No. Didn't think so."

There was a second or two pause before Bucky spoke again, this time all light and pretense absent and she was reminded of the perfect shot marksman he was during the war.

"You're still in my seat."

With that, Barfly got up, mumbling apologies before making his way to the other side of the restaurant and seemingly disappearing.

Neither of them spoke while Bucky poured himself some water, but she just couldn't take the silence and broke it.

"I had things under control, you know."

"Oh, I know I bet you're armed too ain't ya?" he said with a quirk of his brow, forcing her to bite her lip.

"Oh my God you are! A pistol?"

"A knife," she admitted, looking out from under her lashes, sipping her drink as if she'd just admitted nothing of the sort. His eyes went wide, and then he smiled.

"Amazing. Remind me never to piss you off, Carter."

"You're late," she quipped with a cocked brow.

"Mmm, traffic really was terrible. I got out of the cab, walked the last two blocks. I'm starving, what's good here?"

And that's how the first time they sat and shared a meal together began. They found that conversation came unexpectedly easily, good food was welcomed, as well as more than a few bottles of wine. Before they knew it the restaurant staff was cleaning up. It had just struck midnight. Had they really talked for five hours? They had certainly drank for that long. Bucky was actually feeling buzzed if not outright drunk, and Peggy Carter - who had started swearing like a sailor a few hours before - was smashed. Giving out stink about Howard and his unrealistic expectations, his 'bloody brilliant madness' that she was sure was one day going to get them all killed. But that where she was now, working toward a massive goal was as invigorating and as necessary as she'd ever known a job to be. Howard was still a womanising basket case and she had never ending tales about him, all of which were funny no matter how she told them.

She was a hell of an amusing drunk. Bucky hadn't laughed or smiled as much in what felt like decades. She was full of stories about her training days, all the shit she had to put up with, right up to Philips and his grumpy old man act but really he was a big old softie. And a few stories from her time with Steve.

That son of a bitch jumped on a goddamn grenade?!

"Oh but it was something! All the other boys, all of them at least a foot taller and a good few hundred pounds on Steve at the time, all of them ran like little girls ran from spiders. Their faces when he landed on it, attempting to get us all out of range." She sighed, wistfully. "It was something I won't soon forget, that's for sure. I think even then he earned points with Philips, which was no easy task."

"Yeah Steve had this way of just winning people over no matter where we went, it's why it confused me so damn much with women you know? He could charm anyone. His Ma used to say he inherited his grandfather's Irish charm. He used to counter it with how he inherited his bad lungs too, but he was difficult to say no to, even when you knew better."

He had no idea where that had come from it wasn't even the topic of conversation.

She nodded, finishing her glass of wine and fidgeting with the glass.

"I imagine for you it would have been difficult."

That earned her a hard look.

"No – I just mean…" she sighed. "I just mean having known him for as long as you did. Truth be told I was always a little jealous of you. More than a little, really."

Now that had surprised the hell out of him, which probably showed on his face.

"What the hell were you jealous of me for?"

She shrugged.

"Please, Barnes. I may have had feelings for him but I wasn't blind to _his_ feelings for you. Or yours for him come to that." She whispered now, even though they were the last ones in the hotel restaurant, promising that these drinks were their last. "I wasn't sure of course, you both weren't stupid. But… well when I was sure, it was obvious looking back once you knew. Hindsight being what it is an all."

"Jealous of me, goddamn." He drained his whiskey,then looked at her. "If anyone was being eaten alive by jealousy it was me."

She rolled her eyes.

"Come on…"

"Hand to God, Carter. You were what I always said I wanted for him, a smart, beautiful woman who could kick his ass – serum or none - you still could have. And I said I wanted that for him, but the second I saw the way he looked at you … Jesus … I ..."

"Not as fun in reality then."

"Really not."

She sighed then.

"Moot points now, I suppose."

"Yeah, pretty much."

And it was. He never made the choice because he never got the chance. A fact that would never stop being beyond unfair in Bucky's mind.

"Are we drunk? No! I have to drive I can't be drunk," she whispered harshly, seemingly to herself. It made him laugh.

"We're in your hotel, you lush," he said while standing and once again offering her his elbow. She looked at it and him questionably.

He got it. Once upon a time he would have tried anything with a beautiful woman with curves like Carter's, but that was a lifetime ago as far as he was concerned.

"Walking you to your room then I'm going to get a cab, that okay?"

She accepted, internally cursing herself for relaxing so much and getting so liquored up. By the time they were in the elevator to her floor, she was coming back to herself quickly.

"Thank you for the company this evening, it was … Well, it was nice."

He nodded before the doors opened and when he placed his hand on the small of her back as she stepped out she ignored the chill it sent through her. She also ignored him blatantly checking out her arse.

Not the first time she had caught him doing that.

Her memory floated back to another life, another red dress.

As they got to her door, things like reality set in and it was a tad awkward.

He laughed in an attempt to break the tension between them both. It was awkward, of course, but he knew that could be overcome with some charm, if he only had it in him anymore to fake it.

"I uh… well."

"Right," he smiled awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck as he spoke. "Well, Miss Carter, it's been a trip. Get back to New York safely." He leaned in then to kiss her on the cheek and she allowed it. He noted right away how warm her skin was, how lovely she smelled. She always smelled good, even during a war when it was damn hard to smell of anything other than gunpowder, sweat and fear, Margaret Carter always smelled of lavender and roses.

It had been a real long time since he'd been near anyone that smelled as good as she did. He ignored the shiver that ran down his spine as he stepped back. But before he could move too far her hand was on his jacket. She was shaking, and as much as he wanted to blame the drink, he knew he couldn't. He looked at her hand instead of her eyes. He knew if he did whatever sense he had was out the window.

But then she spoke. She said his first name in what felt like forever – if ever – and whatever denial he had left crumbled.

His kiss wasn't gentle, but then again nor was hers. This wasn't about love or sweetness or anything other than two people needing to be touched, to be reminded that they weren't alone and that drowning in their grief could be lessened just slightly for a time. He pushed her up against the door, right there in the hallway, his mouth never leaving hers. Wet and warm and so wanting, needing, with every gentlemanly thing he thought disappearing. Instead of stopping and wishing her goodnight, he pushed her harder against the dark wooden door, making her moan, loving how it sounded, and he didn't stop himself from grinding into her there in the hall. It was dangerous, but then he was dangerous, for both of them. His hand slid up her leg, to her thigh and the sensation he felt when he touched the knife tucked into her garters went straight to his dick.

Maybe he wasn't the only dangerous one after all.

"Christ…" he moaned as she broke away, her hand on a key – where that came from he would never know - but the key turned and suddenly they were on the other side of the door. This time she had him pushed up against it, smaller than him, even in her heels. Weaker too, but he knew only in physical strength was she weaker than anyone in the world. Ignoring it, he allowed himself to get lost in the taste of her mouth, the feel of her warm hands on his neck. He was not focusing on how the last person he kissed was Steve. Hell, he wasn't focusing on the fact that the last person they'd both kissed was Steve.

_Steve_.

Fuck.

"Wait…Wait," he said, letting her go and stepping back. He rubbed his face he took in what she looked like before him.

_Wrecked_.

Her hair messed up, lipstick past her mouth, dress askew, and she had never looked more beautiful.

"I… this …" he started but wasn't sure where he was going.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have –" She was blushing now, and not just from their kisses.

"No it wasn't you… it's not you." You're perfect, he wanted to say, but didn't. Before it wouldn't have mattered much who or what she was if she was a Dame that looked and smelled like she did. And if she had her hands on him like she just did, then it was a done deal. But things were different now. He was different and so goddamn scared of just how different. And she sure as hell wasn't just some stranger.

"You … you don't want me."

She looked confused then, making an attempt to smooth her dress and her hair.

"What do you mean I don't want –"

"You want him ," he said quietly. Almost too quietly, but she definitely heard him.

"That's not –"

"Don't lie, okay? Just…don't." He was willing his hard-on to fade, to please just stop wanting her, but it wasn't working. He was riled up in more ways than one and of course like a right hook to a hot button, his blood was pumping and fucking everything up.

"Peggy come on! You don't want me, okay? You want the good guy. The honest, sweetheart guy who'll wed you before he beds you, not someone like me who'll fuck you and never call you again. Because that's what I do. That's who I am, okay? You wanted Steve, the shining golden boy, the shield. I'm the weapon. I'm the one that puts the bullet through the heads that get past the shield. I'm the one that was fucking the man you wanted when you wanted him, right under your nose."

She looked as if someone slapped her. He hated that he was the one doing this, but it was as if someone else was pulling his strings. What was coming out of his mouth couldn't be stopped no matter how wrong he knew it was to say.

"Do you know, huh? Just how indecent he really was? Course you didn't. He was the perfect gent with you, all blushes and coyness and then he'd go and push me into a dark hallway and kiss me and rut against me, whispering promises in my ear. Do you know how many times I had him? Hell, even I lost count. No one saw what I saw before you people changed him and it was a damn shame because that boy could fuck you like no one else."

"Barnes!"

She hated that his voice was panicked, as if he was on the verge of an attack of some kind, as if he didn't really fully understand what he was saying. But she knew that wasn't the case. He knew, and he was doing it on purpose to push her.

"No! He was amazing, Carter, damn amazing. Then…" he ran his fingers through his hair, "when your guys got a hold of him and turned the little righteous guy filled with anger and pride and honesty and the need to do the right thing - everything in him got … multiplied. He became a hero, the one that I always saw. Even if you all painted him as this icon of good old fashioned heroic Americana, that didn't stop us any chance we got right there in his quarters, right there in our tents. The Holy Joe taxpayers would lose their minds if they knew what the mouth of America's greatest hope was capable of in the dark. He was far too decent to make a move on you … with me he never had any hesitation –"

He didn't get to finish his rant when the sharp sting and the echoing sound of her hand slapping his face took over.

"Get out," she hissed then, her voice low.

He grinned then. It wasn't genuine, and she knew that. It was forced and deliberately filled with malice.

"Told you, you don't want me." She hated the look sadness in his eyes at this apparent inevitability.

"Get. Out." She managed to be louder this time, the anger evident now, just like he wanted.

Barnes just grabbed his jacket off the floor, sweeping it under his arm with a nod.

She was so livid with him, but not for the reason he wanted her to be.

_Idiot_.

* * *

><p>AN: I'm not gonna lie, Carter/Barnes became my accidental OTP for this fic for a while. But don't worry ... there will be an OT3 ;) Any and all thoughts encouraged bbs! xo


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary:**

Christ, if that was half the look the poor girls of Brooklyn were getting she was positive why virtues were being lost left right and centre to James Barnes and his goddamn beauty.

Notes:

In which Bucky fucks things up again, but this time in the more positive sense of the word ;)

* * *

><p>After the mess he had made that night he skipped out of Washington as soon as he woke up that morning, not bothering to eat and only allowing a little time for a quick wash before he caught the six am train. He was at war with himself over how stupid and cruel he had been to her, out of nowhere, just to prove a point to himself.<p>

He was an idiot.

But she was better off without him. Most people were. And while it wasn't as if he hadn't gotten off with a woman or two liquored up before, he knew, even in his messed up state of mind that she deserved better than that. And that's what it all boiled down to really, she deserved better.

_Better than him._

"You're a dumbass kid, you know that?" Dum-Dum commented when he had reluctantly told him the tale over a few beers a couple of weeks later.

"I know that, but thank you once again for pointing it out." He was miserable, and this wasn't helping.

"Bucky, you gotta start living your life. You're young, and when you don't have that sour puss on you, I assume people find you attractive," he said with a grin, sipping his ale. "You need to stop living in the past."

"Oh yeah, explain to me how I'm meant to just get over it then huh?"

His friend sighed then.

"That's not what I mean and you know it damn well. I just _mean_ get out there, make an effort to live instead of just existing. He wouldn't have wanted that. It wasn't what we fought for Buck, it wasn't what he died for neither."

"I mean to," Bucky sighed finishing off his whiskey. "I mean to do it, you know? But when it comes down to it, I just can't."

The older man nodded, patting him on the shoulder.

"Rogers left a gap, no doubt about it. You just … you have to try to mourn his passing but remember that he would be at your back pushing you toward life, toward a good woman or … whatever. That's what you need to remember. You were always the one trying to get him settled, and you think he wouldn't be doing the same for you now?"

"What do you mean 'or whatever'?"

He was terrified of the answer. Of his friend turning to him and rolling his eyes, or worse, acting out in violence, declaring he knew he was a damn queer and to stop moping about his dead lover.

That never happened though, his friend just smiled.

"I don't know Barnes, maybe a _good_ woman isn't what you want? We could find you a few bad ones if you'd like. Whatever floats your boat, I say."

"Yeah well, it feels like my boat's sunk."

"Why? Because you put the moves on Agent Carter? Bucky, I'm surprised you did that, then changed your damn mind for one, because … well, because that woman was a bright light of sweet smelling kick ass in the dark of battlefield Europe for many a man."

"Yeah but–"

"But he was sweet on her, I know, we all knew. That doesn't mean that your feelings or hers for that matter aren't valid now."

"I know that. I know, it still just feels…"

"It feels like you're betraying him somehow?"

Bucky nodded, signalling for another round.

"Yeah, I only wanted him to be happy and I think with her-"

"He's gone, Buck. It's hard as hell, but it's reality. You can pray to him and for 'im, but fact is time waits for none of us and if you don't get busy livin' you're just busy dying. And we're all gonna be dead soon and for long enough. If you and Agent Carter are sweet on each other, I say see where it takes you. It's gotta be more fun than sitting in a bar with me whining like a baby," he finished with a smile, which earned him a playful shove.

"You're an ass, you know that?"

"I do," the older man nodded. "But I'm not the one that walked out on a revved up Margaret Carter, Jesus. And they call ME Dum-Dum."

He finished off his drink and headed home, patting his friend on the back and promising to see him soon. And to not fall down and die on the way home, because apparently he was idiot enough for anything after his stunt with Peggy.

He was sure he wasn't going to live that one down in a hurry.

It felt good to be on a job, a focus, a purpose. Usually she was fine with taking the ones she knew would be a quickie; in and out, as it were. Gathering intelligence, using her wits and Stark's tech to get the job done was more satisfying than even she imagined. In three months she had infiltrated two Hydra bases posing as upscale businesses both in Los Angeles and Miami. She was then sent to London, in what was meant to be a short term gig, but turned into a long term undercover op at a top London hotel and what was suspected to be a Hydra financing scheme happening in the bowels of the building. If they could find the money, trace the trail they were sure to have far larger chances of putting together an accurate list of locations, financiers, and what exactly the money was funding and where. It wasn't easy; the hours were long and never ending, and her 'job' as a hotel maid actually made her long for the battlefield. Those women did ten times the work of a man and got zero the thanks.

Taking down six members for extraction meant she had to get up and out of there once the team in that location completed their task of retrieval. It also left her with a sprained ankle, serious bruising on her legs and neck from the arsehole who thought he could strangle the life and the mission out of her. He failed and got a taste of his own medicine when she used the steel wire hidden in her bracelet to off him.

Phase one of her mission complete, Howard sent in her replacement and she informed him she was taking a couple of weeks in the country, and her parent's old place. He didn't argue, not that she would have cared if he did. He may have been her sort-of boss, but between the two of them she was the one that 'wore the pants around here,' and he had no issue with that. If anything she figured early on that he, in fact, liked that she was take charge and no bullshit, and that she frequently told him 'no.' He needed a grounding force in his life and she was more than capable of being such a being.

Time in the country was sweet, though things would never be as simple as they were before the war – before she had seen all she had seen and done all she had done, lost all she had lost. But, at least for a time, it was nice to pretend.

For a week she enjoyed walks and the small town where she had spent her summer holidays when they came here. The people knew her. They asked a lot about her role in the war and even more so about Steve – or rather Captain America. She had found that when someone knew Steve they asked about him, but the public didn't know Steve. They knew the Captain, or at least of his actions and his heroism, and it was a terrific topic for small town conversation. Sadly for her, it was always with her they wanted to discuss him. After the first week she started driving through to the other village for her food and necessities. The rest of the time she buried her head in the books she had been meaning to catch up on, decidedly not case files, and certainly not recruitment applications.

Okay, so a few case files and a few applications, because Jesus the country was boring when you weren't ten.

She had decided to air out the house, leaving the doors and windows open, and to plant some flowers in the backyard, a task that was soothing and time consuming. Even though there was a caretaker for the place now she was slowly realising that perhaps with her job, that renting the place out would be better for it. It needed life about it again; kids and love, like she had when she was growing up.

The sun had just started setting and since it was late August in England the weather was unpredictable at best. She wanted a fire on and some tea before it got too dark, deciding to bring in a nice stack of logs her father kept in the storage shed at the bottom of the garden. Of course her senses were on high alert when she got inside to see the front door now closed. She had left it open with a frog shaped stopper stopping it from slamming. She dropped all but one log and used it as her weapon as she rounded the corner, spotting the dark haired man peeking up her staircase. She didn't hesitate, instead aiming to whack him on the head.

Aiming being the operative word. His reflexes were razor sharp and he grabbed for the log and for her, slamming her against the front door.

"JESUS!"

"BARNES?!" They yelled in unison at each other, and the shocked look on both their faces wasn't quick to disappear. The log was dropped and he had her hands pinned above her head. She was a split second away from kneeing him in the balls when he spoke.

Luckily for him then.

"What in God's name are you doing here?" she asked, noting he still had her pinned. She motioned and he let her go, his breathing erratic.

"I … well I came to – THE DOOR WAS OPEN, CARTER. In America that means, hey come on in. Not hey, come on in and get bludgeoned to death with a …" he looked to the ground, "a fucking log and a crazy woman covered in dirt!"

"I WAS GARDENING AND I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE _YOU_," she yelled and he took a step back. "And you know we have phones here and everything what the hell-"

"Howard thought it was a good idea," he admitted sheepishly.

"And we're listening to Howard now are we? Thought you hated him?"

He shrugged.

"Not thrilled with him, think he's a live wire and an opportunistic asshole but he was civil enough and when I said I needed to talk to you, his suggestion didn't entirely suck. I wanted to … aw man."

He looked to the floor and her eyes followed. There were a small bunch of roses, now thoroughly squashed.

"Oh. Oops," she said sheepishly, stooping to pick them up. "I … I'm sure they were beautiful. Thank you?"

He just sighed, a little pink appearing in his cheeks. Right, last time they had seen each other it hadn't gone well at all.

"I appreciate the gesture, really, and … the fact … strange as it is that you came all this way."

He just sighed.

"I'm staying at that B&B in the village, there's only one."

Yes there was only one, a mile from her, which meant he walked to her place.

"You met Mrs Andersen then, nosy old bat," she said as she led the way into the kitchen, her smashed roses in her hand. They'd made fine rose water and she liked that for her baths.

"Uh, yeah, she wanted to know why I wanted to know where you lived, I sorta told her that we served in the war together after she was giving me the stink eye for being a yank, apparently it's a thing … anyway, once I said that she seemed fine, told me it was here. Nice digs by the way."

The old farmhouse was large and intimidating at times, but it was a family home on the inside and converted grounds on the outside. Her family hadn't much use for farming, but her father bred horses for years, so the space had come in handy then. Now it just lay unused and unloved.

"Cup of tea?" she offered, teapot in hand, he just shrugged as she waved at the kitchen table for him to take a seat.

"Peggy, I wanted to say that I'm sorry–"

"Barnes, really it's not–"

"No, okay. I was out of line and cruel and I didn't … I mean I did at the time I said those things to hurt you, but in my right mind that's the last thing I ever want, I was just messed up and–"

"And an idiot."

"And that, and I was a jerk, and I understand if you never want to talk to me again–"

"You and Steve shared the love of dramatics didn't you? Christ, it must have been a regular drama with you two around," she said with a slight smile, taking the seat next to him. "You were cruel and stupid and hurt and you wanted to push me away, I get it. I got it then too. You wanted me to think less of you, maybe less of Steve too–"

"Jesus I'm so–"

"Sorry. Yes, I know, stop saying it. But let me speak now okay?" She patted his hands that sat clasped together on the table in front of her. "You hurt me, but not with the truth about you and Steve. Believe it or not I know what happens between two people who love each other and who fancy the pants off each other, as I assumed you both did."

Her wording made him smile. She was glad; she wanted this to be light. Enough things in their lives were heavy burdens to carry and this didn't have to be one of them.

"Look you were crass and I imagine if Steve knew you were spilling all his sexual history to people–"

"Not people, just you."

"Well, even at that, can you imagine the blushes?" she said with a laugh, causing him to sigh with a smile.

"He'd call me an asshole for disrespecting you like that."

"He'd be right. But you're also sorry. And you came thousands of miles with _Howard_ might I add, to right your wrong. You get points for that, but you never needed my forgiveness. I wasn't hurt to find out you both were … doing the do, if you please. It didn't … and doesn't bother me. Sometimes people are attracted to the opposite of sex, sometimes it's the same, and apparently, sometimes now it's both."

The teapot started screaming on the stove, making them both jump.

"So much for relaxing in the country. Between screaming teapots, and rouge soldiers giving me a heart attack, never a dull moment."

A cup of tea, three rounds of sandwiches, and two whiskeys each later, they were still talking. This time in the living room by the fire she had been craving all day.

"And you just punched him? First day?"

"Well," she waved her hand in the air, "there's always one on the first day, the one to test you, degrade you, and you nip it in the bud. You show them you're not afraid or a wallflower. These men understand violence, so…"

"So you sucker punch 'em in the face. Nice."

They were sitting across from one another again. This time she was tucked up on her mother's periwinkle blue couch as he sat sprawled on the matching chair by the window.

"It has to be done, otherwise they think they can walk all over you."

"I can't imagine a man dumb enough to think he could walk all over you."

She finished her drink then with a shrug.

"Trust me, they're out there."

"Dum-Dum told me I was the dum-dum by leaving you in that hotel room the way I did," he said, smirking into his glass. "I can't say I disagree with him."

"You told him?" It surprised her a little, but only a little.

"Was going crazy with guilt, had to tell someone, and I thought he wouldn't judge me but boy did he ever."

"Well…"

"He was right though." He spoke clearly then, serious even, making sure she knew he wasn't making a joke of what had happened.

"Hindsight is a fantastic thing, I suppose." She tried to keep her voice casual, she probably failed.

"Yeah if I could do it over again–"

"Is that right?" she chided playfully, sliding off the couch, her glass in one hand whilst bending to retrieve his. She just grinned, a sly grin, taking his glass from him and sauntering over to the drinks cabinet behind the door.

"Another?" she called back, only to feel his hands on her hips. Her breath stilled and her heart stuttered.

_Oh boy._

"I don't know what I want in the grander scheme of things, not really. But I know I don't want to not … to not see what this is. If – I mean if you want, only if you want."

He was whispering, why was he whispering?

She turned and took in his form, how nervous he seemed still, how he had in fact travelled thousands of miles just to apologise, albeit months later. She couldn't fault him for the time though. Their bond was complicated, beyond complicated really, but it was also theirs and theirs alone now. They had a connection that couldn't be denied, one that went far beyond the love of another they shared a long time ago.

She wanted to see what it was too, just the two of them.

She nodded, slightly, and it was all the encouragement he needed as he kissed the air from her lungs as he had a habit of doing, it seemed.

Drinks long forgotten, they stood like that, rather chaste – his hands on her hips, hers against his chest, all perfectly acceptable and nice. But neither she nor he was nice, not anymore.

Peggy's lips parted in a charmed grin at his impulsive actions, a thrilled shiver running down her spine in anticipation of what he might do next. A gasp left her lips when his fingers clasped around the sides of her neck, threading into her hair before pulling her tight to his body. Both of them lost balance slightly as her hip hit the cabinet and the bottles there clanked in annoyance.

Her skin felt aflame instantly when his lips crushed against hers in a fervent kiss, this time without any hesitation, and she grew momentarily light-headed. She wanted nothing more than to have his hands and lips all over her, touching her, tasting her to his heart's content. She was eager to explore him as he was herwithhis probing tongue at her mouth, and she moaned softly as his strong hands roamed her curvaceous – if she did say so herself – frame. She enveloped her arms around his shoulders, then his neck, intuitively trusting the safety in his hold, allowing him to easily hoist her up against his hips.

He pushed her hard against the nearest flat surface, this time it was her mother's living room door instead of a hotel room door. Barnes and doors, she wondered, maybe it was his thing.

"Bed?" he asked, and she nodded in between kisses.

"Up … _up_ …" His mouth was on her neck, by her ear this time, and it made it difficult to talk, or think, or do much else other than feel and breathe.

"Stairs?" he finished, and without waiting for her to respond, kept her in his arms and opened the door. Expertly, he carried her as if she weighed nothing all the way up the wide staircase.

"First left," she managed before she dissolved into giggles.

"Sorry, it's just … this was my childhood bedroom. The idea of what we're about to do in there … my poor mother will be spinning in her grave," she admitted before smiling as he dropped her softly on the bed. Thankfully, her childhood things were long in storage and the room she had now had been used for guests for a few years since. He looked around, noting her old small writing desk still sat in the corner.

"That got to stay though."

He half smiled before leaning down and kissing her again. She yanked him the rest of the way, all his weight falling deliciously on top of her as she wrapped her legs around his middle, keeping him right there.

"Goddamnit Carter, you're a brazen woman," he joked, nipping at her neck again.

"Shut up. With the stories I heard about you Barnes, I'm practically a blushing virgin."

That made him stop and pull back, looking her in the eye, almost scared.

"Oh for Christ sakes, I'm not actually a virgin. Why? You got something against those?"

"No, been with a few, been one myself once – a long time ago."

She rolled her eyes at that.

"Uh-huh. Well are we going to get on with it or shall we wait until I'm a born again one for your pleasure?"

He just looked at her then, and that look ... Christ, if that was half the look the poor girls of Brooklyn were getting she was positive why virtues were being lost left right and centre to James Barnes and his goddamn beauty.

"Ain't much pleasure in bedding a virgin actually, you have to be too careful, too gentle." He ran his hand down her arm, down her side and to the hem of her skirt, playing with the edges there.

"You don't do gentle?"

There was a spike of fear as to what exactly this would be if not gentle. She may not have been a virgin, but it had been a long time all the same.

He just kissed her and whispered in her ear, as if he was afraid anyone else would hear him.

"I can do whatever you want, darlin'."

Admittedly, that left her a little speechless, not to mention setting her heart pulsing.

He smiled at her when she didn't speak, threading his fingers through her hair.

"I wanted to do this the moment I saw you," he exhaled hotly against her lips, releasing her soft hair from his grip as his fingers unbuttoned her silk blouse, pulling the fabric open past her bra, admiring her, taking his time. Before the war, before everything, his time with girls was just that, girls. It was clumsy and rushed. Very rarely did he get the chance to spend a whole night with a woman, and certainly not a woman like Peggy. He was a little delirious at the thought if he was being honest.

"You're not subtle," she said, biting her lip as he fixed his mouth in the valley of her cleavage. "Not many soldiers are in the company of a woman though, so I didn't take offense."

"Kind of you," he mumbled before puckering his lips on her nipple and making her gasp. She felt him grin, the arse. She had forgotten she still had her knife in her garter, until she felt him feel it and he groaned into her skin.

"Carter, this is far too … Jesus." He pulled out the small but insanely sharp knife, un-tucking it from its case. Her heart stuttered, as he looked to her, it, then back to her.

Then he grinned.

That grin meant trouble, she knew that now.

"_Barnes_…"

He wasn't listening. Instead he was bunching her skirt and white silk slip around her waist, drinking in the view of her in her champagne coloured underwear and matching garter belts attached to her nude stockings.

He looked at her for a second beneath his lashes, and she rolled her eyes.

"Don't you dare!" she all but hollered with a laugh, but she was too late. He had cut her straps with the knife, one, then another, and they snapped up to hit her on the thigh.

"You _actual_ arse."

He just shrugged, kissing her hard on the lips. "I'll make it up to you, promise," he said before he all but buried himself between her legs, kissing her thighs and slowly peeling her underwear down.

Panic flooded Peggy, forcing her to grab his face to make him look at her.

"What are you doing?"

He just looked confused.

"What does it feel like I'm doing? Trust me, it's good."

"No, I mean no I – You're not doing that."

He cocked a brow at her then.

"You don't … want me to?"

She flushed, the truth wasn't that she didn't want it, it was just she had never had it, and wasn't sure what to expect. She was never one to keep her opinions to herself but she suddenly found herself shy.

"Oh your beau before never tried this? Shame on him, may I?"

She just gestured with her hands as she feared her voice would give her nerves away if she spoke.

He slid his hand between her hot thighs, rubbing his fingers over her wet slit before his mouth took over completely. She jerked up and away, but he just held her in place, strong and sure, safe. It felt like he should have to breathe, shouldn't she be breathing? Thoughts of anything else other than what he was doing – and doing so fucking well – flew out the window. She gripped his hair, directing his movements, not that he really needed any help in what he was doing, but it helped her feel more grounded.

Growing up she had heard talk of boys with mouths made for sinning, but she never ever thought this was maybe what they meant. If it wasn't, by God it should have been.

He craved the feeling of her squirming and grinding relentlessly hard against his mouth. With her hands digging hard into his arm or his scalp, anywhere she could touch, the feel of her nails making him growl roughly against her lips. He nestled his face deeper still between her thighs, sucking, then thrusting his tongue, making her squirm more each time. His fingertips were pressed hard into her soft skin, kneading the smooth flesh between his fingers. He couldn't help but look, to see what pure bliss looked like on Margaret Carter's face, a look he was partly responsible for. It egged him on when she'd moan his first name or his nickname even, to want that look to never leave her face if possible. When he moved her legs up on his shoulders, opening her even more to his ministrations, adding fingers and more thrusting, she was done for. Lip biting was useless, and truth was she wanted him to know how he was making her feel, so she didn't hold back the moans that were going to escape her anyway as she came so hard her head felt like it was lifting off her neck.

"Jesus Christ … Bucky …" she panted as he finally came up for air, a shit eating grin and remains of her orgasm on his stupidly pretty, pretty face. "Jesus … Christ," she muttered again. Using the time she needed to catch her breath, he toed off his boots, quickly followed by his sweater and suspenders, leaving his shirt open and his pants still in place. If she needed an out or wanted to stop, he didn't want to be standing there in his birthday suit.

As it turned out she didn't want an out; she wasn't regretting what they were doing – so far at least – and he thought that was a good sign. Instead, she stood on wobbly legs, shedding her clothes carefully as he watched, a little dumbfounded.

She was so beautiful, heavy perfect breasts, a delicate collarbone that he just wanted to lick and kiss, a dipped waist and full hips … hourglass perfection, even if she was blushing and fidgeting with her necklace, it just added to her charm.

"You just going to take in the view, Sergeant?"

"No Ma'am," he answered standing next to her, close enough to dip his head and kiss her sweetly, not caring if he still tasted like her. Her slim fingers and perfectly painted red nails dragged down his chest, sending shivers up his spine before she slid his shirt off and he caught her admiring him just as he was her. Scars and all, he thought.

Feeling her flick the buttons on his pants open was all he needed to take things over again, shucking them off, toeing off his socks and grabbing her flush against him in a kiss that even make his head spin a little. That's when things got messy, in the best possible way.

Slipping into bed beside her and waiting for her to initiate things seemed like a lifetime but was probably nothing but a minute or so, but they were both admittedly nervous. Once this happened there was no erasing it. It was a huge step. So they kissed and touched sweetly for a time, just allowing the other to explore a little, if he had his way she would never stop touching him. So uneasy and unsure in some ways, but so utterly confident in others, and then once inside her he realised that not only did she taste like heaven, she felt like it too.

"Ugh, y-yes!" she moaned loudly, locking her legs around Bucky's sculpted back . Every solid inch filled her as she canted toward him more and more, and they quickly found a rhythm. She trembled at the sensation of fullness between her pale legs. "Oh fuck," he sighed, as her toes curled with each hard thrust. "You feel so … good inside me," she gasped, her pulse racing and her skin growing hot underneath his solid clutch. She clenched her thighs, squeezing as his warm palm clasped around the side of her neck, pulling her mouth to his and the intensity was bordering on too much and not enough all at once. It gave way to frustration as his tongue easily overtook hers in their silent fight for dominance. But, as always she gave as good as she got. She was kissing him back just as fiercely, lust consuming her overworked body in the most animalistic of ways just before she lost all patience and rolled them over, his eyes widening in shock for a second.

But quickly following her lead, he was keeping her in balance as they rode out their orgasms. Admittedly, she got hers first, rare as it was she knew as a woman; most men had a one track mind and rarely did it have anything to do with the woman's pleasure. He would tell her that later, reiterating the fact that he really was a gentleman, no matter what other people might have thought. It made her giggle, because as much as he was the devil may care, the truth was that he cared very much. He was, just like her, great at hiding things.

Howard was right; he would make a great addition to S.H.I.E.L.D.

But work wasn't on the brain, not when he was sauntering back from her bathroom with a warm wash cloth and a small towel. The good old fashioned catholic way of sex without babies leaves quite a mess on one's self that she did remember. He tended to her so softly before placing a kiss on her belly button and throwing the items wrapped up together by the door.

"Too cold to go back in there," he whispered before hopping back in and putting his icy toes on her legs. She jerked away, making him laugh.

"Warm me up?" he asked, this time tucking her under his arm, and she instinctively placed her head on his chest.

"Warm yourself up, the rest of you is-"

"Hot? Am I hot, Carter?"

She didn't even need to look at him to see the grin; she could hear it for God's sake.

"Sergeant?"

"Yes, Agent?" he asked, the same laughter in his voice, clearly enjoying this silly game of theirs.

"Go the fuck to sleep, would you please?"

He laughed then, big and true and she realised it was the first time she ever heard it from him. She felt it, lying on his chest, and she saw it in his eyes as they looked down at her, dancing with mischief but with something that might have been contentment – at least for now.

"Yes Ma'am."

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading! Reviews are cherished :D xo


	5. Chapter 5

They had been lying on the red tartan blanket for most of the afternoon, the sun high and hot in the sky for late summer, and it was just peaceful bliss. Something he thought he'd never have again. Laying there with her by his side, snuggled together, napping on and off, kissing and touching when the mood struck; but mostly just enjoying the silence of being together offset only be the trees rustling or the birds chirping.

"You know, we'll have to go to town and collect my things if I am staying here," he said as she snuggled closer into his chest, both their eyes closed. They hadn't so much discussed it as much as they hadn't left each others sides for more than ten minutes in twenty four hours. Leaving to sleep there would be an issue.

"Ugh, that means facing her and she knows you stayed here which means she knows what we did last night," Peggy answered, muffled by his chest, and it just made him laugh.

"Since when do you care what old ladies think?"

"I don't, usually, but … I've known her since I was a girl. It's a little awkward is all?"

"Well, she should be happy for you then. You have company. Handsome, charming company that gives you orgasms."

That earned him a slap on the chest.

"Yes, be sure to point that out to her and I'll never be able to show my face in the village again."

His fingers were bunching up the skirt of her dress, he loved it, white with blue flowers, soft and sweet and made her curves stand out in a way that, now he'd seen them up close, was slowly driving him mad.

"Nope," she said, stopping him, then forcing him to look at her. "Last night was an anomaly. While I enjoy sporadic and unplanned as much as the next girl, we're not taking any chances."

He was horny, hard, and confused, currently in that order.

She read it on his face.

"Things must be used to stop other things from happening."

Huh?

"Oh good Lord, either you use condoms – which we don't have, nor do I want to think about buying from the pharmacy in town - or I have to slip up stairs and … well, use something before we begin."

She was blushing, and it was adorable. He kissed her cheek and laid back down beside her.

"Of course, I'll use or not use or do anything you need for this to be safe."

She nodded then, and he realised there was that thing that women wore inside to stop pregnancy, he knew about it but forgot about it. It had been a good long while since the fears of the aftermath of being with a woman were a reality. It was frowned upon and talked about and of course he didn't give a fuck. Most things he loved in life were frowned upon or illegal, why the hell shouldn't a woman choose when she had a kid, it was her body and her life after all. And kids, as cute as they were, just weren't on the agenda for her, at least not then, or for a good long while, he knew that too. He saw her drive and her ambition, and it was one of the many things he was finding in the 'What I Love About Peggy Carter' list tucked away in his brain. It was a long list.

She kissed him again before pulling back with a smile.

"Meet me upstairs in five minutes, Soldier."

She pushed herself up off the blanket, nudging him with her foot and disappearing inside.

He smiled to himself, enjoying the warmth of the sun beating down on his face, and the warmth circulating from his stomach around his body that felt a lot like happiness.

He hoped it lasted. He hoped that it would be strong enough to extinguish the pain and the darkness he carried with him since his time on Zola's table.

He hoped.

Bedroom distractions of the best kind, of the very best kind, had prevented them from going into town until early evening. It had taken all Peggy's will to get out of bed again after … well, after they had had their ways with each other a few times over. It wasn't appealing, leaving the warmth and the comfort of his arms or the pleasure of his body, or the wit from those lips. But he needed a change of clothes, and his clothes were being held hostage at the Bed and Breakfast.

She fixed up her hair, changed her dress into a non-wrinkled version, and even wore a jacket.

"How do I look?"

"You don't want me to say you look like you spent your afternoon getting thoroughly fucked, right? That would be the wrong answer?" he grinned, evilly.

" Barnes ."

"You look lovely and serene and lady like and proper and not like you had my di-"

"Hush you now, get in the bloody car and shush."

He got into the car, but not before he pinched her arse on the way by.

He was dangerous when he was giddy, she realised very quickly.

Peggy decided to stop off at the grocers while Bucky checked out of the Bed and Breakfast, for her own sanity, and for the fact that she wasn't sure she could stop a smart arsed remark should the proprietor be so bold as to publicly judge her, which she knew she would.

Barnes, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"You know, shacking up with an unmarried woman is a sin and surely isn't Christian, Mr Barnes," the woman commented as he handed her back his unused key with a smile.

He just grinned wider and winked.

"Oh I sure hope so. You have a good day Ma'am."

She knew by his step he was far too happy. She got into the car and waited for him to join her.

He was laughing still when he threw his bags into the back seat and hopped in the passenger side.

"You said something didn't you?"

"No, she said something, I merely agreed with her." Yeah, Peggy didn't want to know.

She drove in the direction of the house, not that they'd make it of course, instead choosing a sunset drive into the wilderness, 'because nature, Carter, we've to make the most of it, Brooklyn don't have much!' Whereas she was just convinced he wanted to fuck her in the woods, not that she would have objected … much.

Turns out it wasn't the trees, at least at first. Peggy never had had sex in a car before hurricane Barnes blew into her life. It was cramped and hilariously awkward and they laughed and joked and came and joked some more. She loved it, and she was finding rather easily that she loved him too.

They ended up spending a week in secluded bliss, but as always duty called and Peggy was back on mission, and Barnes had a job to get back to in New York. They parted ways at Howard's private air platform with promises to 'see a movie' when she got back.

They both knew no films would be watched, but the pretense was sweet.

Work was work and it took another month to infiltrate the gangs using the hotel fully and another week to get the operation blown apart. She was then sent with three other operatives to Berlin, where she would be all but stuck until the week before Christmas in attempt at setting up a SHIELD base as well as hunting for stray Hydra. She was due home the week before Christmas. She was humming with excitement about it too, and she had a few friends in New York now, Barnes being number one on her list of visits, to say the least.

Letters were great, but they didn't touch the real thing.

But once again fate wasn't on her side. Snow storms decided to pop up out of nowhere and she and her three colleagues were stuck in post war Germany at Christmas. Their idea of celebration was pilfered wine from a raided Hydra cell by candle light.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

She ended up back in Brooklyn at insane AM on December 30 th , exhausted and lonely as she looked around her cold and empty – and decidedly festive free - apartment. She dumped her bags, changed her clothes and grabbed her car keys.

The drive to Queens seemed to take an eternity, and before she knew it though the sun was peeking through the skyline as she found herself at his front door. He answered half-dressed and adorably dishevelled, hair askew and sleepy eyed.

God, she missed him.

"Hello," she said in manner for her that was almost shy.

"Carter?"

"I … need to sleep, okay? I just … "

Without saying anything else, he took her by the hand, closed the door and led her to the bedroom at the back of his apartment. She silently slipped out of her shoes, dress, and stockings, then slipped into bed beside him with a content sigh. He kissed her temple, pulling her into his warm embrace.

"Welcome home, Peg," he said groggily before pulling the blankets up over them for what was the best night sleep Peggy had had in months.

He woke up to the scent of coffee in his nose, slowly opening his eyes when he felt a dip in the bed beside him.

"Afternoon," she said in a whisper.

"Hmmm," he groaned, turning over to her side, peeking with one eye then the other. "I thought I dreamed you up, coffee tells me otherwise."

She smiled down at him from her sitting position against headboard. "There's a cup here for you if you like."

He groaned again. Bucky Barnes was not a morning – or early afternoon - person, not after a triple shift. He sat up anyway, attempting to wake up.

"Long day at work?" she asked, handing him the steaming cup.

"Mm, took a triple, guys had families to get to over Christmas, I had … well, the stray cat that the whole block feeds. Figured it was an easy decision to make."

"Did you have a nice Christmas?"

He shrugged.

"Dugan and his wife invited me over for dinner. It was nice I guess, but it was their families you know? Real welcoming and what not, just didn't feel right in the end, but the food was great. Don't remember much after they broke out the whisky though." He smiled then, putting down the coffee and turning to her. "You?"

"In what can be called nothing more than a bunker, with booze and newly appointed SHIELD agents stuck weathering a snow storm."

"Nice."

"Hell more like it, but it's just another day really. Without family or kids around, doesn't seem much sense in making a big fuss. It's a shame, really."

"Yeah?"

"I used to love Christmas, loved when it snowed and we'd go out sledding in the field next door, or building snowmen if we were in the country, before we'd go inside and mum would have a whole big dinner planned. All their friends and family met at ours too, the place in London we used to have because it was close to my father's job. It was nice."

"It sure sounds it," Bucky replied with a wistful look on his face, even with three day (at least) old scruff. "With us it was kinda the same. When Steve's asthma or whatever else had decided to hit him wasn't acting up we could do that. You know, before the depression hit Christmas was always fun at least. Then it did, and it was like everything just kinda stopped? I knew not to expect much for Christmas beyond anything handmade – we got a lot of scarves Stevie and I – from my Ma, his Ma, everybody's Ma knitted you something. It was always a size or two too big, but you were promised it'd fit. Course by the time it did it was summer and you had no use for anything anymore it would get so hot." He was smiling and she was laughing and it felt nice, just to share.

"Sounds lovely though, the community of people doing that for each other. I was an only child, shipped off to school whenever the time came. That in itself was a community too I suppose, but different."

He looked at her then before hopping out of bed and padding over to his closet.

"Get dressed, we're gonna do something … nice."

"I was thinking breakfast?"

He winked then.

"Me too, but this first. Come on, get dressed and ... here–" he threw her a very large blue and black obviously hand knit, obviously well loved, scarf. "Stick that on. You have gloves, right?"

She did, and she saw where he was going with this, and it made her giddy like a small girl.

Ten minutes later they were playfully arguing about the shape and girth of their snow man, and Peggy was finding suitable sized stones for his face. It was probably idiotic, it probably looked it too to passers-by, and they were grownups for heaven sakes. But, she didn't care. It was the most fun she'd had in ages – innocent, good old-fashioned fun.

"No Carter, come on, his head is too skinny, look at that! We gotta fatten him up with some more of this," he whined, balling more snow around the side of the man's head – Walter was his name, Bucky decided. Why, he wouldn't say.

"His head is perfectly shaped, look at it!"

"I am, and for one it's crooked as fuck."

"I disagree."

"Oh do you now, well excuse me." He mocked her accent, badly, and it earned him a snowball to the face. "Ohh, no! Come on that's not– We said no snowballs! Building!" That didn't stop him from throwing a small one at her and hitting her square in the chest. Christ, even with snow he had good aim.

She retaliated and got him good with one right between the eyes. Of course that set him off, and she ran, but he ran after her, part of Walter's head in his hands.

"No!" she cried as she circled her snow covered car. "Come on, that's half of poor Walter's head you've got there!"

"Thought you said it was perfect as it was? This is for you – Sweetheart." The Brooklyn boy was back in full effect as he shouted back to her. She was trying desperately to get some ammo so she could at least distract him. It was no use. He snuck up on her and yanked the snow right down her back.

She ran toward the house, and him, screaming.

"You ARSE Barnes! Nooo!" She was trying desperately to shake it out but it was doing no good. The fucker would pay!

She saw him then, giggling like a bloody school girl from behind another car, and she got him with a small hard snowball before she went back to putting Walter back to rights.

"Look at what he did to you, you poor snowy man you," she said loud enough that he'd hear her. And he did, and he approached.

Ha, sucker.

"Least you could do is help me fix him!" she said, but she had her own ammo now, tucked away in her pockets. He conceded and bent to straighten Walter's head on straight. He got a palmful of snow right down his front.

" Fuck !"

She was stuck with the giggles and then a very jittery large man, grabbing her and pulling her, they landed rather ungracefully on top of the snowman.

"Oh no, Walter!" she cried in false concern, as he put his snow covered paws on her face, pulling her in for a kiss.

"Fuck Walter, he's gone back to his roots…" he said with a grin as he kissed her, sweetly at first, but soon with a hunger they both felt in the absence of the other since England.

"I'd rather fuck you, if it's all the same, Barnes," she whispered just in case there were any stray passers-by.

His eyes widened then before he kissed her again.

"Such language for a lady..."

That earned him a slap on his now wet chest.

"Let's get inside before we both die of consumption or flu."

Once inside they both shamelessly stripped down. Rather, she stripped him, and he stripped her, both of them ending up in a messy heap on his unmade bed in just their underwear.

"There are a few ways I can think of to get warm," he muttered against her neck, his fingers dancing over her breasts, down her side, grabbing and spreading her thighs, as she willingly moved against him.

"Yes, friction creates heat…"

"So educational, tell me more," he said against her mouth as he slipped his fingers inside her wet warmth. Christ, that never stopped being amazing.

"I was always more a show than tell kind of girl, Barnes, I thought you knew that about me by now?" she spoke, her eyes closed in silent pleasure, grinding against his palm, her own hand grabbing him just so to make her point. He stifled a moan with a kiss as he skimmed his other palm up along her soft inner thigh. He brushed his digits along her underwear, soft and cotton this time, unable to ignore the pure heat emanating from between her legs that made his cock pulse inside his drawers.

They didn't say a word. They didn't have to. The desire brewing between them was more than obvious. She groaned quietly when his tongue teased its way into her mouth, over and over, in a never ending battle for control. This was them, through and through though, and they both knew it, loved it, seeked it out. He could never have this with any other woman, he knew that too. There would be too much backstory, too much to explain, but with her, she just got him and accepted him. No one had done that since … well, since Steve.

Her hands glided into the back of his hair, softly scraping her perfectly painted nails along his scalp. His hand travelled down and she all but hummed softly, grinding her private warmth against his fingers.

"Shit, bloody actual shitting shit," Peggy cursed, causing him to stop making her writhe and look at her.

"Problem, Ma'am?"

"No, I forgot my thing my … thing for the … thing ."

It was adorable she couldn't say it.

"It's fine, I have rubbers."

That got a raised eyebrow.

"Wait, you're judging me? We need 'em and you're being judgey face?"

"No, no. I just … no, it's good that you do otherwise this would be hastily stopping or ending in a not so happy place for both of us."

He kissed her then.

"Honey, I could end it very happily for both of us in so many ways without me ever having to risk us fucking with your future."

"Yours too…"

"I know but the woman has to do all the–" he gestured to her belly and it made her laugh, "the work, and I like kids but I know we're not–"

"No, it's not–"

"And it's not a topic for when we're both half cocked, so to speak."

That set her off then, a fit of giggles that he had to pull away from because he was really half way there and her jiggling wasn't helping. Instead he moved to root around in his bedside locker for the necessary aids.

"That's not really what that saying means Bucky."

"I don't care," he huffed.

She was still giggling, and there was only one way to stop her. Once he had everything in place he all but sauntered to where she was half laying, half sitting on the bed, stroking himself slowly. And slowly, she stopped laughing, catching his eye, then he watched her eye wander lower.

Got ya, he thought.

She opened and closed her mouth a time or two, words not quite making it out.

"What was that, Agent?"

She just grinned, a twinkle in her eyes. God he loved her like this.

"I'm still cold."

He slid over her as she allowed herself to fall back onto the blankets softly, positioning himself between her thighs. She hitched her legs around him as they came face to face.

He just smiled.

"Never let it be said that I let a lady go cold in my bed; it would be a damn shame and I would never forgive myself," he whispered into her soft neck. God he loved how she smelled.

"No, well, we can't have that can we?"

"No Ma'am."

And that was the last of the banter as they spent the rest of the early afternoon in various states of blissed out undress, only really resurfacing because of tummy rumbles.

By three they had finally gotten back into their clothes and trekked the two blocks to 'the best pancakes you'll ever eat,' or so he promised. It was a tiny diner of sorts, not too packed given that it was New Year's Eve that night. Most sensible people were at home enjoying their day off work if they had it.

They took the booth near the window. He liked to be near an exit she realised, always slept closest to the door too in bed. It was a quirk, a small one, but one she noticed.

"Bucky it's good to see you in here again. I was beginning to think you'd forgot about us?"

Peggy looked up and saw a young waitress all but beaming at Bucky. Her name, so her name tag said, was Katherine.

"Kitty, course not. Just got busy with work, you know how it is."

She was bubbly; tall and slim with no real curves the uniform could give away anyway. She had a wavy blonde do, tucked back for her job, Peggy assumed. She was a pretty girl.

Girl being the operative word, a girl who was giving her the stink eye.

"This is Peggy, she's … a friend of mine."

"Pleasure I'm sure," Kitty replied, her tone anything but pleasant.

"I'll have a large stack of my usual please, darlin', and a side of bacon – crispy if possible - and a cup of coffee, black with two sugars if you got it."

She jotted it all down with a smile, and then turned to Peggy and her smile dropped. It was hard to not find the whole thing amusing if she was being honest.

"Um, apparently they're the best pancakes around and that sounds rather good, so I'll have the same if you don't mind – except a tea for me please – milk and two sugars."

She sighed as if it was the world's hardest task, and Bucky noticed.

"How've you been, Kitty? They treating you right here?"

"They're fine, just waiting for the New Year, you know? I love New Year's Eve, it's the last chance to get festive for a long while."

"That it is."

"You got plans, Bucky?" she asked him but her eyes were on Peggy. She looked up and his eyes were on her too, he was smiling slightly.

"Um, you know I'm not sure yet."

At that she took her leave with the orders.

"Someone has a crush," Peggy whispered before sitting back in her seat. He just rolled his eyes.

"I meant to say before, Dugan and the boys, well, and their wives who've got 'em and what not are having a bit of a get together in O'Shea's pub. It's your side of Brooklyn, you know it?"

She did, she passed it most days on her way to work.

She nodded.

"Anyway, I mean I wasn't going to go, but I mean … if you … I would go if you wanted to go?"

"I wasn't invited though…" Yes, she felt herself cringe at how awful a response that was.

He rolled his eyes again, this time playfully.

"Well yeah Carter, that's kinda what I'm trying to rectify here."

She wasn't sure why, but a sweat broke out on the back of her neck, almost a panic.

"I … I mean … won't it be … I don't know, a little awkward?"

"Why's that?"

"I was their … I mean during the war I was their–"

"You worried they're gonna think you're too good for them because you were their superior during the war?"

She shrugged, that was one reason but not the reason, and they both knew it. She saw it in his face.

"I …"

"Or is it you think you're too good for them now or–" Or me , she heard it, though he never said it.

"No, that's not it at all I just–"

With that Kitty appeared with the drinks, and never had Peggy heard so much judgement in a silent settling of cups before.

Christ.

When she was out of earshot, Peggy spoke up.

"I just think it might be a tad awkward is all, I haven't seen them all since the–"

The funeral, well, memorial. There was no body to bury but they all attended anyway, except Bucky. Jones said they had tried to reach him but at the time no one knew where he was.

"It's fine, really. I don't wanna pressure you into something, forget I asked."

"Buck-"

"No, seriously." He attempted a friendly smile but it didn't reach his eyes, shitting shit. "It was silly and … you know stupid and just an idea anyway, so it's not a big deal."

Except now she felt like shit. Whether she meant to dismiss him or not, she had, and she really hadn't meant to. She had wanted to spend the night with him, but those men knew her from the war, they knew her as … well, someone who had something going on with Steve. Everyone knew there was something there, even if they didn't know the details. To suddenly, okay, almost four years later show up as Barnes' date in front of them, a first date really all things considered too... God it gave her such anxiety.

"Order up." Kitty appeared again, expertly balancing the plates, placing Bucky's down first of course, followed by Peggy's. Everything did smell and look amazing even if her appetite had died in her throat.

"Thank you, looks fantastic," she commented to her unimpressed waitress, whose eyes were still on Barnes, shockingly.

"What are your plans for tonight, Kitty?"

He wasn't!

The girl blushed and all but sighed.

"Well... actually me and the girls are going dancing. You know that new place that opened not far from the Square? We're going there, Susan's brother got us tickets what with it being New Year's an all. But it's a struggle you know, working here and then having to rush getting all pretty in time to leave," she sighed again as Peggy sipped her tea. Bucky was beaming at the girl, who was clearly revelling in this attention. He was trying to make her jealous, she knew that, and she wasn't about to rise to it.

She might not think herself about anyone like Barnes thinks she thinks, but she was certainly above petty jealousy.

Or she was until the bloody blonde ran her hand down Bucky's arm.

The absolute gall.

"Oh Sweetheart, I don't know about them other girls," his Brooklyn boy act was back in full effect now, his whole demeanour changed. "But you've got nothin' to worry about. The boys around here should be lining around the block to get a shot at dancing with you come midnight."

The girl blushed even deeper then, and Peggy stabbed her pancake, annoyed at how good they were.

Another customer came in and sadly dragged Katherine away from her favourite person ever, leaving them to eat in silence. It was awkward and tense, but neither one was willing to budge, apparently. Silently eating and drinking until she was about done, she couldn't stomach anymore stupidly amazing pancakes, or looking at his stupidly handsome face as she was just so annoyed at … well … everything. Mostly herself, but mostly him too, and the waitress, and everything in between.

But again, mostly herself.

"Well," she spoke up, fixing her knife and fork to the side of her almost empty plate. "You were right, these are the best pancakes I remember having." She stood up then, yanking her scarf around her neck and pulling on her coat in haste. "You really should tip your waitress," she said as she hopped out of the booth before bending down to his ear, "though don't tip her _too_ hard, she might get pregnant."

And with that she marched out into the December chill, her anger keeping her warm all the way to her car.

Notes:

Reviews are more than welcome ;) xo


	6. Chapter 6

Summary:

Wherein I want a group of Howling Commandos all my own & Bucky tries to get lucky.

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><p>Peggy was fuming, and still a little confused as to just who her anger was aimed at. Was it him, the waitress, or more likely, herself?<p>

Okay, so it _was_ herself.

She should have accepted his invite, hell, she wanted to! Her first reaction was yes, let's be normal people for a night, but then doubt and fear crept in and ruined it all to hell. It was stupid, it really was. She had loved a man that died. She was entitled to move on with her life, even if it was a little … odd that it was with the best friend of the deceased.

She wondered how much The Commandos knew of Steve and Bucky's real relationship status. She knew them to be thoroughly decent men, hardworking and smart. The idea that they didn't know was a little insane, considering the many months they all spent in each others pockets.

Home after an angry drive and almost knocking down a pair of old ladies on the way, she decided to channel her anger into reorganizing her closet, finally unpacking after so long away, and filing things into neat piles for laundry and what not. He hadn't come after her, not that she had done it so he would. She had done it because she was mad and didn't want to witness anymore of his childish flirting with a child. Well, sure, she was probably at least eighteen, but what did that matter? The fact that he did it in front of her was proof enough he was attempting to get a rise out of her – and he'd succeeded. By the time she had cooked herself a late dinner, she was over her anger, and had since moved on to regret. Should have said, shouldn't have done, the usual mind messing she put up with when she acted hastily. She was just about to fix herself a dish and another drink when a knock came at the door.

She hated herself just a little for feeling excited for a second that it might be him.

It wasn't.

"Agent Carter," came the voice from the smiling man she once knew. She was so pleased to see him healthy and well, she had hugged him before she had even spoke.

"Gabe! What a lovely surprise, please come in."

And he did, taking off his hat as he did, shedding his coat as he walked into her stifling hot living room. The heating was wonky at the best of times, but she was just glad it was more heat and not or she'd be dead.

"What brings you here? Would you like a drink?"

"Oh, thank you, but I won't be staying. I just popped by to say something – something that might not be my place to say. In fact, I know it's not my place, but I've been elected by the remaining Commandos as spokesman and so, well ..." he sighed, so put upon as he sat on her sofa. "Here I am."

"Oh, I see … and what is this speech that needs a spokesman?"

"It's about Bucky."

Her face flushed.

"Now, please don't … I don't mean to overstep my boundaries or really butt in where I'm not wanted, but–"

"But Commandos and code, yes, carry on."

"It's just these past few months with you in his life, this is the most … well … the most alive we've seen him since before."

That made her take a seat herself. Her vodka soda was sitting in front of her and she was thankful for it.

"It's none of our business Agent Ca-"

"Peggy, please. We aren't at war anymore, I'm just Peggy."

He smiled; he had a sweet smile.

"No offense, Ma'am but you're always an Agent, our Agent, war or no war. But, I'd like to call you Peggy if that's okay."

She nodded, finding herself smiling back.

"Barnes then?"

"Yes. To be honest, it was Dugan that sent me, he said, and I quote –_ 'he's acting like a horses ass and more whipped than his Aunt Bessie's cream puddin', if there's anything you can do to fix that and make it a happy god damn new year he'll buy you a new hat.'_ End quote."

The man before her was bashful but clearly a few drinks into their evening. The message from Dugan rang in his voice and made her laugh.

"Oh dear that isn't good."

"No, it's not. And I don't know, we've tried getting him drunk but that guy has the constitution of an ox or something because nothin' but maudlin' all evening."

That struck a nerve in her, the only other man she knew unable to get drunk no matter what was affected by some serious injections… It made her mind wander to a place she didn't want it to go.

"Nothing's working then?"

"Must have a bottle of whisky in 'im at this stage, still as sober as I am, which to say I'm a little buzzed I won't lie–"

"A little Dutch courage then?"

He laughed at that.

"Yes Ma'am. Anyway, Dum-Dum, all of us really, we wanted to invite you to come for the New Year. If you didn't have any other plans and maybe just–"

"Cheer up the sour puss?"

"If anyone could I'm sure it'd be you, he's smitten."

That made her blush, and he saw it.

"Peggy, if I may be so bold?"

She nodded. Why not, she thought.

"I figure you'd be nervous, walkin' in there alone, and maybe wondering what we're all thinking because of how things were before."

She didn't deny it, she just nodded again.

"The war changes everyone, Ma'am. Nothing gets to stay the same for better or worse. We all loved the Captain, albeit in very different ways, each of us lost him and mourned him in our own way, but that doesn't mean we get to lie down to death and stop living because of it. If we did that then his sacrifice was pointless, you know?"

He stayed a while longer but was missing the rounds that the others had promised him if he was the one to break his night and do the talking to Peggy. She knew where they were, and it wasn't all that far from her place – a few blocks at most – but she promised to think things over and show up if she changed her mind.

She ate and had some more tea before she picked herself up and dusted herself off. She had to get changed and wondered absently if she had any of that old red lipstick she used to favour so often.

"I'm just saying you've got skills, Barnes, skills you should be using." Morita was making it clear to Bucky that hauling ass at a factory five days a week just wasn't where his life should be spent. That apparently the SSR and even SHIELD was interested in him. As the majority of his fellow Commandos had taken up military positions in one way or another, raising the ranks quickly because of their war hero status and connection with the American super soldier.

He had explained, as he did every time they got together, that his heart just didn't lie in the fight anymore. He didn't explain further that it was because fighting the fight wasn't worth it without Steve.

"Man, we've been over this."

"And we're all going to keep going over it until you realise–"

"I like my job, okay? It's simple, easy–"

"Boring, dull, _mundane_–"

"Got a thesaurus back there, Dum?"

The older man just put another neat whiskey down in front of him with a grin.

"You can't deny that I'm right. You're bored out of your mind there and you know it. Nothing beats the rush you get when–"

"When you kill someone?" he asked, jokingly, but really the truth was he knew all about that rush – it wasn't just about saving your own life, not really, and particularly after the serum, things … felt more in every way, and killing had given him a buzz that nothing in life had before. And that scared the shit out of him.

"It's better I stay out of it, trust me," Bucky gave eventually, downing half his drink in one gulp. The bar was packed but they had commandeered a corner table, and with people in and out – drinking, dancing, catching up - he was already exhausted. He hoped he could make it past midnight and make his excuses. The last thing he needed was watching loved up couples suck face, and there wasn't enough whiskey in the world for that. By eleven thirty he was well on his way to drunk, the rest of them were more than a little well oiled, the unmarried or unattached of the bunch slowly pairing off, and it wasn't as if he was a loner or anything, more than that, he enjoyed people – always had. It was just … the one person he wanted there wasn't and it put a damper on his spirits, no matter how many pretty girls the rest of them tried to send his way. He danced of course, he wasn't a square, but it was obvious to everyone that his heart just wasn't in it, no more so than the ladies dancing with him. In the end he made excuses about needing air, or a smoke, or a smoke out in the air – never mind the fact that the bar was filled with men and women smoking more often than not. He got funny looks, but they said nothing, Jones though looked utterly disappointed as he kept watching the door most of the evening after he returned from a very questionable amount of time 'in the bathroom.'

It was snowing again, of course it was, but there was a weird calm outside in the frigid fresh air compared to the packed, stifling inside of people talking over people. The Irish family that owned the bar had broken out the music a few hours before, and a live band of sorts always lifted people's spirits, particularly when there was flowing alcohol. He wished he could enjoy it, but fucking things up with Peggy weighed on him, as much as he wished it didn't. There were times he missed the carefree boy he was before the war, because that's what he was, a boy, and according to Steve a bit of a whore. He said it jokingly, but for a long time before they had both learned to accept their feelings for one another that went far beyond brotherhood, he had spent most of his nights trying to bury his shame in between the legs of any girl in Brooklyn that might have him.

It hadn't worked, obviously. But that didn't mean that he didn't love it, or them, even if only for the night. With Carter it was different; they had a bond that went far beyond any silly tryst in the doorways of a brownstone or two. Even beyond that, who he was now was falling in love with who she was now, no matter who they had been – or belonged to – during the war. He was halfway through his cigarette, watching a drunk wobble his way out of the bar and down the street, holding onto the walls for dear life, singing a song that only he knew the words or meanings to. He smiled after him and hoped he'd make it home and not fall asleep and freeze to death. He was lost in thought and absently aware of the heels clicking against the sidewalk, approaching, belonging to who he assumed was another tipsy person on their way to the bar. It wasn't until she was a foot or so from him that he looked up, and saw Peggy. She was wrapped up in her royal blue double breasted wool coat, a hint of whatever she was wearing just below the hem, stockings and black heels that she was somehow able to walk perfectly in, even in the rapidly falling snow.

"You walk all the way here?" he asked in lieu of a hello and she shrugged.

"No, I'm not an idiot, my car is around the corner. Parking isn't the best here, plus I don't really want a drunk throwing up on my car."

"Makes sense," he nodded, throwing his cigarette down and stubbing it out with his foot.

"I thought you quit those?" she asked, nodding to his foot before walking to settle against the wall beside him, both of them their backs to it.

"Old habits …" he shrugged, finally looking at her properly. She'd curled her hair, styled it with some pinned back bits, and her makeup drew his eyes to her perfect ruby red lips. A chill ran down his spine in recollection of the last time he saw her with lips that red.

She touched his arm then, noticing his distraction with a smile.

"I'm sorry."

He squinted at her, surely he was hearing things, or he was drunker than he realised.

"What are you sorry about? I'm the one that fucked things up by acting like a child, I just–"

"I over-reacted."

"No you didn't I–"

"Let's agree we both messed up then, shall we?" she said, sensing things weren't going to get any clearer if neither was willing to admit to being solely at fault. Peggy didn't have much use for stale arguments.

"Yeah okay, but I am sorry too … just so you know."

She nodded then, rubbing her gloved hands together.

"So you just standing out here by your lonesome for fun?"

"Needed a break from–" He waved a hand toward inside and she smiled.

"I can understand that."

"I'm glad you came, you know?"

"I almost didn't… One did wonder if you had taken the little waitress up on her obvious offer for a good time." That had earned her a cringe from him, which she was secretly happy with. "I mean but then Gabe showed up and sort of demanded it, a little."

Bucky's eyes went wide. That little fucker!

"He did what? Peggy, seriously you have to know, I didn't know he was gonna do that!"

She was laughing then, and he loved her laugh though hated that she tried to stifle it behind her hand.

"I know, calm down. He said you were bringing down the room as it were, that maybe I should talk some sense into you. And after our stupid fight I thought maybe we could talk some sense into each other, see how that went."

"Maybe that's true, but I'd never force–"

"Oh would you shut up and kiss me?"

He scratched the back of his neck as she walked in front of him, her heels bringing her to chin level with him. He grabbed both her hands in his and stifled a nervous laugh of his own before leaning down to kiss her. Warm and open, their kisses like this always seemed to consume everything else. Neither of them were paying attention to much else when suddenly the bar erupted with cheers and counting from ten. They paused for a second and glanced at each other, only this time she placed her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss and allowing him to grab for her waist. The counting stopped and suddenly there were cheers and the choruses of what Bucky always thought to be one of the world's saddest songs began. A new year had begun and he wasn't sure there was a much better way to end one and start another than by getting kissed how he was getting kissed by the most beautiful woman in the world.

They finally broke apart when she started to shiver and few merry people inside the bar decided to come outside to announce the New Year to the world, but she kissed him again before pulling back, both of them breathless.

"Happy New Year, James," she offered with a smile, which he instantly returned, surprising himself. They rarely used the other's first names, it was nice when she did though, it felt special.

"Happy New Year, Peggy. I think ... it'll be a good one."

She nodded before her lips were back on his, her whole body pushing him against the brick wall with a force that turned him the hell on.

"My God Carter, you're a brazen woman," he said into her neck, making her laugh as a call back to their first time getting intimate.

"And don't you bloody forget it. Now Soldier, buy me a drink?"

With a grin and a nod he took her hand and all but dragged her past the stragglers into the smokey warm walked in all but unnoticed at first, the crew too busy drinking, dancing, and in some cases full on smooching in the corner, the world but a distant memory.

"_Well_ look who it is!" Dum-dum commented first, grabbing the attention of the others, and suddenly the group's eyes were on them.

For a tense second both Bucky and Peggy worried what would be said, but instead of judgement or teasing Jones bunched up on his seat, shifting his woman – Samantha – into his lap to make room on the round seating surrounding the table.

"Take a seat Agen- Peggy!" he called.

"Yeah, Barnes, isn't it your round?" Morita said with a smile, shooing him with a hand back to the bar, leaving her to chat with them. Pleasantries were exchanged and New Year wishes were spoken, and she instantly relaxed, shedding out of her warm coat, revealing a dress she hadn't worn in quite some time. When Bucky returned with drinks, muttering annoyances at having to bartend these idiots too, he shuffled the drinks to their respective owners before returning for a second handful, this time passing it off to the ladies of the group.

"I guessed whiskey neat?" he asked as he handed Peggy hers, and she nodded, waiting for him to notice the dress, which he did. Biting his lip ever so quickly before the mask of socially acceptable behaviour went back up as he took a tightly squeezed seat next to her.

"Glad you showed up, Ma'am. We weren't sure how much more of his sour puss we could take. It's the damn New Year after all. You about saved our lives!" Dum-dum admitted rather dramatically, tipping his pint in Bucky's direction, a sly grin on his face with the teasing.

"Yeah, yeah, shut the hell up and drink your drink you drunk."

He just wriggled his brows in return, taking a healthy sip of his beer.

Luckily after that the conversations broke off and continued easily. Peggy found herself catching up with each of them individually and each of them very much not asking about the status of her relationship with Bucky. She was glad for it, as she wasn't really sure how it would or should be classified. With her job, steady and traditional wasn't really possible at that point in time, not that she assumed James Barnes was a stickler for tradition, but if he expected a little woman to become his housewife he had bet on the wrong horse right off the bat. She figured a conversation was necessary, maybe sooner rather than later, but whatever it was in that moment it didn't need to be defined. It was fun and they were enjoying it as far as she was concerned, and that was definition enough for her. By the time the bar had locked the doors the music was still playing and the dancing was getting messier by the minute, she realised it was after 3 AM. They all should be home and dry, but these places rarely worked like that, particularly on a holiday as celebratory as the one they were in the middle of. But there had been a lull in the grab for Peggy's attentions and she finally got a chance to speak to her … date.

"I'm just saying it makes sense."

"What is it with all of y'all trying to get me employed? I have a perfectly _acceptable_ job."

"Stark thinks you'd make an excellent Agent of SHIELD and truth be told, so do I."

He just grimaced.

"Look, Carter, he and I are on … alright terms right now. Plane rides to England are long and the guy likes to hear himself talk, but, beyond that, I want nothing to do with his flights of fancy."

"It's not a flight of fancy it's a legitimate–"

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to diminish your work. Believe me, I understand what you do it beyond difficult and for the greater good and that's fantastic."

"But?"

"But, I fought for the greater good once before, and while I don't regret fighting for the people who couldn't fight for themselves, I'm not exactly itching to get back into the ring."

She understood that, she really did, even if she and the rest of the Commandos thought it was a damn shame. She dropped the topic and got into a debate with Jones on all things Stark, and clearly after a half hour or so, Bucky was feeling a little neglected, or bored, or just plain horny. Because that's when she felt his hand under the table, slip to her knee. Her coat sat between them, which he casually moved so it basically covered the lap of her dress. She should have realised.

At first she thought nothing of it. He was a tactile guy, even if he was used to keeping his displays of affection behind closed doors. But then, slowly it started to feel less affectionate and more … purposeful. Casually his hand sat on top of her knee at first, his fingers just ghosting the hem of her dress under the table as he nodded along with the conversations being had, even participating. But then his hand slowly inched higher, warm fingertips pressing into her skin through the delicate silk of her stockings. They were sitting so close that even if people were looking it would be difficult to guess what was happening under the large, drinks filled table, and no one was looking, too busy arguing in jest or conversing in pairs. She took a deep breath, causally shifting so she could grab his hand to a halt. He just squeezed in closer, his strength subtly overpowering hers.

His jaw clenched when she dared to look at his face, fingers silently travelling and making contact with the small piece of exposed skin between the top of her stockings, suspender belts and her underwear. She took another silent deep breath as his other hand grasped the table. With the noise of the music and the chatter, no one so much as batted an eyelash at the change in her breathing, or his come to that.

But surely this wasn't actually happening. He was playing a game of chicken with her. He had to be, right? There was no way that he would do that, in a room full of _ oh _ –

Oh, okay, so he would do that, in a room full of people. He was doing that.

His hand shifted slightly as his fingers explored and she tried to yank his hand down discreetly, but it wasn't happening. Instead he kicked her legs apart under the table, and used that time to get even closer. She fought a gasp as two fingers slipped inside her. She was beyond turned on at that point, and judging by the flush in his face, he was feeling the same. It was a dangerous game he was playing, and she knew he got off on more than a little bit of danger; they all did, these band of merry lunatics of which she was a leading part. Circling, pressure, sweet torture, she wanted him right there and he knew it. He smirked slightly, able to fully keep up a conversation while slowly, painfully so, working her up and winding her like a jack in the box. She was almost there, so terribly close when the barkeep called for last orders and that sadly they had to shut up shop. She took that as her sign, pushing him away begrudgingly, but making her– their excuses, and beginning to say their goodbyes. Promises of seeing the women were made, and a dinner and a 'proper' catch up with the commandos was also promised. The speed at which they grabbed their coats was bound to have cause suspicion, but neither of them cared, not even a little bit.

They managed to get maybe half a block away. The street was all but abandoned, beyond a few stray drunks going the opposite direction and a few stray dogs looking for warmth across the street by the nearest café, no one but them. They were headed silently toward her car, but first Peggy had to even the score.

She pushed him as hard as she could against the wall of an alleyway between two buildings, shadowing them from the street light. He groaned as his back hit the brick, but there was still that smug smile that in the moment was angering her.

"That wasn't very smart, Barnes. Any one of them could have clued in…"

"Too drunk … and even if they did, I don't care. I wanted to feel you."

His pupils were blown as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth. A shiver not from the cold ran through her when he looked her up and down.

"I don't care, it wasn't smart."

"Then it was dumb. Still had you on the ropes though didn't I?"

She pushed into him at that, her hand spanning his chest, down to his tummy, to his belt, and finally to the healthy bulge straining his pants.

"Was I the only one on the ropes back there?"

He bit his lip again before smiling.

"Maybe not."

She just laughed, stroking his hair as she kissed him again.

"Do you know what else I've wanted all night?" His lips brushed hers before moving down to her neck, pushing, nipping, and relentless. "To hear you whimper my name in that delightful little accent of yours."

She looked out beyond the alley and sure enough they were alone, but it was also insanely cold and were they really that stupid?

_Apparently_.

Suddenly more aggressive, and wrecked by his husky tone, she broke another kiss and reached for his belt. His eyes went wide and she got a thrill out of surprising him, upping him at his own game.

"Jesus, Carter," was about all he could manage when she stroked him to full attention before bending at the waist, to taste. His huffing breath visible around them in the frosty air, her mouth hot and welcoming as his hands gripped the brick behind him.

"Someone is gonna see…"

She stopped for a second to meet his eyes.

"I thought you liked to live on the edge, Barnes. Or is it only when it'_s_ _my_orgasm being denied?"

He huffed another breath as she went down again.

"I've gotten off too many times to the idea of taking you in that dress to not do it when I have the chance. Do you have any idea how badly I wanna fuck you?" It was almost a whine now, his voice, completely wrecked with arousal.

She smirked, stopping again but not looking at his face.

"I think I have a fair idea…"

He loses it for a second, letting her go to town, her lips and mouth creating waves of pleasure until he was almost there, his hands gripping into her hair, his legs shaking, he was almost – almost –

And she stopped. She just stopped?

She pulled back with a pop and the frigid cold air hit him like a brick, fucking fuck!

"What? Wait, what?" he managed before she checked her lipstick in the mirror she had in her purse. There wasn't much left on her mouth but he was sure his dick was a nice shade of ruby red.

"My car is around the corner, you can wait until then, surely?" she grinned, and it was evil. Underneath the heroic woman was also an evil orgasm denier.

"Peggy, Jesus Christ!"

She giggled before walking away, the clip of her heels the only sound on the street.

"If I get back to the car before you, I'll finish what you started and leave you to do the same, don't you think I won't."

She had thought of maybe driving out of the way somewhere, but neither of them were very patient people, and certainly not when they were both as turned on as they were. And when he all but began undressing her before she even managed to get the door open, well, that was that.

Backseat sex was tricky. He was tall and all elbows when he was trying not to be awkward. But with her on his lap, underwear discreetly tangling around one ankle, it looked like a semi innocent make-out session should anyone pass by. The fact that she was in reality riding him like a rodeo bull was just a bonus. All rolling hips, grabbing hands, curious mouths and panted breaths, the frigid cold car soon started to steam a little, and then a lot. By the time they were trying to gently roll away from the other – over-sensitive and wrecked, they were both giggling like fools.

Happy fools though, and that was the main objective.

_Happiness_.

Their lives – her life more specifically - was still so dangerous, unpredictable, and could at any moment simply end and that would be that, as they say. So whatever it was she was doing with James Barnes remained label-less when she took him home that night, and the next night and the two weeks after that night. It remained label-less as she went off for Stark on another mission, this time taking her away for a month, then another for two, and by the time summer rolled around they were still as casual as they both felt comfortable with, but just as happy remaining so.

It would be, as it turned out, everything that would come at them from the world that would cause their main issues, and in times like that she really wished she had a shield to protect them both from the horrors of the world, but life just didn't work out like that, did it?

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>AN: Thanks for reading be sure to tell me what you think in the little review box ;) xo Ps. Merry Christmas! xo 


	7. Chapter 7

Summary:

Bucky dreams a dream, while in the waking world they continue to embark on a serious case of adorably reluctant domesticity.

Notes:

My first time really writing anything 'Stucky' for this fic, nervous you guys! Eek!

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><p>The tent was dimly lit, and the rain hadn't stop for as much as a minute since they had returned. Steve was being debriefed, and debriefed some more; Bucky had stubbornly refused any extensive medical treatment, reassuring the doctors and nurses that a wash and some bandages and a square meal would do just fine. He was tired, sure, but he knew he should have been dead on his feet, after being able to walk for days on end on nothing but water and whatever they caught between the prison and base-camp. He knew he should be weak and sickly, but instead he just felt as if there was fire beneath his skin and electric currents rushing through his body. He couldn't sit still if he was being paid to, never mind stay still long enough to sleep.<p>

"Hey, the guys have a poker game starting up across the way. They sent me to see where you went," Steve said as he popped his head into the tent, then opened the zip the whole way and stepped inside. His presence swallowed the space now and it stole the breath from Bucky's lungs. He had had a few days to get used to this new Steve, to see him up close, to see that it was still Steve, but not? That he could walk in step with Bucky now without getting breathless, he could see, breathe, run, and it was amazing and terrifying all at once.

"I'm not much in the mood for it tonight. You go though, I'm good here."

Steve shook his head, instead shrugging off his wet jacket and sitting on the rolled out bed.

"Nah, I'm good here too. Unless … I mean, unless you _want_ me to–" Steve motioned outside, as if he'd want him to go. Bucky had gone more than a year without seeing him and he thought he'd die alone on that table; no he really didn't want Steve going anywhere.

"Stay. I don't mind," he said, trying to stay calm when he was all but jumping out of his skin with fear with the unknown. "Or I mean … you should go find Agent Carter, have a nice chat, maybe some _tea_. Isn't that what the Brits do, chat over tea?" He hated tea, tasted like dirty dishwater you asked him, give him coffee any day. The worst coffee was better than the best tea in his opinion.

Steve blushed, and to be honest it was a reassuring reaction, even over six foot and a hundred pounds more Steve was still a clueless fool when it came to women. He scratched his ear before he spoke.

"No uh … she's um … she's in a meeting I think, I'm not sure."

"You know what I'm sure of? That woman wanted to eat you _alive_ when you marched us back up in here. I'm surprised you haven't taken her up on whatever she's been offerin'."

That got him the 'annoyed brows,' but he ignored them and continued to sharpen his knives. It was an oddly soothing exercise.

"She hasn't been offering me _anything_, Bucky."

Bucky gave him an incredulous look, because please. Peggy Carter was no one's fool, and to pass up Steve all packed up as he was now, it would be just plain stupid.

"Well then maybe it's about time you offered her a little something." He wriggled his brows then, attempting to be light hearted about it, and failing.

"What's up with you?" Steve snapped, clearly taking the bait as always, but Bucky found himself too tried to argue.

"Nothin' Stevie, nothing at all. I'm just being … well … me."

"No, you're being odd. You've been odd since we got back. You sick or something? I told you, let the doctors–"

"NO," he yelled before he took a breath. "No more doctors, Steve."

Steve held up his hands then, this time standing up and taking a step toward Bucky.

"Hey … okay. I'm sorry. Okay? No more doctors."

Steve looked him over, up and down once, then once again.

"There's something you're not tellin' me, I know it."

"I'm fine," he all but barked out, hoping if he said it enough it would come true.

"You know I was always the bad liar, but man you stink at it too."

Bucky just rolled his eyes, putting the last of his clothes in his bag. They were shipping out to London the next morning and he was more than ready for some hard earned leave.

Steve grabbed his hand, then the other just held him in place. He wanted to flinch away, he wanted to move back. The last time Steve touched him it was to get him off the table back in that place. And the last time before that … had been the night before he shipped out. It had been so different to how he's been touched by anyone since, it was sweet and loving and careful and true. Everything since was war and rough and pain and terror.

He closed the space between them, taking a deep breath as he always did before he did what came next.

"Can I?" Steve whispered and Bucky just cocked a brow, as if he needed to ask.

Instead of having to stand on his tip-toes, he bowed his head a little, wetting his lips and pressing them softly to Bucky's.

Bucky didn't respond right away but that wasn't unusual, not for either of them. The nerves were there, every time. It didn't matter how many times they had done this or been together more intimately, the nerves stayed.

So Steve did it again, this time kissing him proper, and he slowly responded as Steve slid his hands up his neck, past his jaw and into his hair as his warm tongue softly explored his mouth. God, he missed him, he loved him, and he was relieved to have him in his arms again. His kisses were indulgent, but urgent, longing but sure, and as always with them it shouldn't work as well as it did, but goddamn did it work.

Bucky moaned when Steve twisted his hair near the base of his neck, allowing Steve's tongue to slip in and taste again. Bucky knew he tasted like the mint candies that Rollins had saved up, and the weak coffee they were all surviving on. But Steve, he tasted like salvation. He got him back after trying to forbid himself from thinking the worst on that table with that evil little man and his torture devices. To be back in his arms was such a relief.

Bucky took the lead as he always did, pushing his body flush up against Steve's, but this time Steve was bigger. He didn't have to be so careful and Steve was thrilled, thrilled more so when they grinded up against each other, both letting loose small moans of pleasure, breaking their kisses only to breathe and only when absolutely necessary.

"_Steve_–"

"It's okay … it's okay … We can." He smiled before opening his eyes, like it was so simple. They were together, so of course they would be together.

With that, something seemed to snap Bucky from his aroused stupor. He let go of Steve's shoulders and stepped back. The cold in his distance from Steve was unbearable.

"No … I …" he shook his head, stepping back further. "Are you nuts? Come on, this is insane, we can't … not like this."

Like _this_, Steve thought, and instantly he thought he knew Bucky's reasons.

"Oh," he whispered, softly.

"Right? I mean come on … it can't happen. Not like this, not here."

Steve's ears were burning and Bucky was pretty sure the rest of him was too, he felt the familiar tightness in his chest but he knew it now that had nothing to do with his injuries.

He was panicking; they were both silently panicking.

"Right, no of course not. Silly of me to think … to … yeah, I um, I should go."

Bucky looked as confused then as he was sure Steve felt.

"Wait, Steve what … Don't go okay? Stay."

"No, I uh, I have to pack too. We're out of here at zero six hundred hours so … Yeah. Night Buck." With that he all but bolted the tent, leaving Bucky feeling like the world's biggest idiot.

It took him until lights out and a good bit after to work up the nerve to cross the clearing to the quarters of the higher ups. Phillips, his underlings, Agent Carter, and of course Captain Goddamn America. As much as Steve had protested the special treatment, it would have been overtly rude to outright refuse the room, or what was really a cell with a proper bed and a locker with a lamp and not much else besides. Either way it was roses compared to the tents in the rain.

_Fucking bugs everywhere._

He knocked once, knowing it was enough, knowing that quietly did it because hey, why take chances right? Steve opened it right away, standing there in his long blue underwear and nothing else. It was the first time Bucky had gotten a look at what they'd turned his smaller friend into, and Jesus, it went straight to his dick.

He didn't say anything, and neither did Steve. Thankfully it gave him the in he needed to just grab Steve's face and kiss him as if his life depended on it, and sometimes it felt like it just might.

It was rushed and rough, but everything neither could say with words in the moment.

I love you, I need you, you're an idiot but god do I love you more than I thought possible, I'm glad you're alive, I need you alive.

You know, the usual between two guys in a war.

"Buck–"

"Shh, no, don't logic me out of this just shut up and kiss me okay?" he pushed him back, once, twice, until Steve's legs hit the bed and he went down softly, pulling Bucky with him. And they stayed like that for a time, just kissing, necking and grinding on each other like it was a drunken night back in Brooklyn.

"Lemme look at you, what the hell did they do to you?"

Steve was blushing, he looked like that and he was still blushing. Christ what was he going to do with that kid?

"I didn't think you liked … it … me. Now. I mean not that you're shallow or anything because hell I know that better than anyone you wanted me when no one wanted–"

"Hey, you stop that talk you hear me, wasn't your fault people are fucking idiots and I'm done telling you that."

Steve rolled his eyes, "Anyway, yeah. They uh, changed a lot … I guess. Height, weight, muscle mass, all my ailments are gone, and I can breathe Buck. First time in … Hell, first time ever. I came out of that machine and there was air and my lungs felt so huge and powerful…" his friend was smiling, beaming even from ear to ear and it was a beautiful thing. "And I can run and well, you've seen some of what I can do now, I guess."

"Be a reckless idiot and storm a Hydra base all by your lonesome, nah that wasn't no magic injection Steve, that was just you being you. Remind me to have a stern talk with you, again, about limits."

"The thing about this stuff, it sort of means my old limits don't exist," he said bashfully when he had every right to announce it cocky as you'd like.

And that was true, not physically at least, and now the sky was the limit as he was being hailed a hero.

"Is that right?" Bucky cocked a brow before leaning down to what used to be Steve's bad ear, now perfectly capable of hearing, even when he whispered, "What else can you do?"

He didn't even blink before he flipped them both quickly, silently, so Bucky was trapped beneath his thighs.

_Christ_.

Eyes wide, they both stifled a laugh.

"Damn you gotta teach me that," Bucky all but choked out as Steve went for his neck, wet soft kisses trailing up and down from ear to collarbone, and he was sure he was going to say something in the form of words but they died on his tongue.

"Been teaching you my whole life, why would I stop now?"

"You're a real punk you know?"

"Yeah I know. I know and you know and are you gonna fuck me or are we gonna chat all night?"

"I'm not fucking you, not here. You really want us to get caught with me doing you? No, if anything is easier to explain it's the other way around and you know it."

"Sure, a Captain taking advantage of his rank … you know they'd never buy that from me, so shut up and just do it."

"You go from shy blushing bride to god damn sex crazy in a minute you know that?" Bucky added with a smile, yanking off his shirt that Steve had somehow, somewhere unbuttoned, and Steve's hands were already going for his belt.

"Your fault."

"Don't I know it?"

Steve stroked his hair with one hand, tucking it behind his ear slightly, the short regulation cut keeping it neat.

"Your eyes are so blue. I could never really tell before … but … yeah." He kissed him softly, and Bucky never wanted it to end. Both of them stripping the other down was nothing new, but this time, with this new Steve everything was like the first time. Bucky's heart was beating out of his damn chest for one thing.

"You're beautiful," he whispered, admiring the blond's … well … everything. "Always been beautiful now's just a different kind."

"I was scared … not scared … but nervous I guess? That maybe you wouldn't like all this," Steve said gesturing to himself as he shucked his drawers, and 'all of that' was one way of putting it. Shit, that stuff worked everywhere huh?

Bucky's mouth went dry, just shaking his head to stop notions that silly from floating around in Steve's head anymore.

"You have–"

"Yeah … Yeah I do. I'll …Yeah." He moved more clumsy than usual to the locker. Inside was his shaving kit with the tub of Vaseline he retrieved, banging his hand in the drawer in the process.

_Star Spangled Man with a plan, indeed._

Bucky's vision and brain went blurry when things jumped from kissing and groping to Steve working himself up and open. The look on his face almost enough to get Bucky there alone without any touching. But then there was touching. Strong, big hands instead of small, pushing and pulling, caressing and loving. His mind was spinning as Steve licked into his mouth with a moan, panting with wide pupils blown. Blue eyes meeting bluer eyes, filled with lust and love and all the things between them and for a split second there is no war, no death and torture – just them.

Bucky stretches his two fingers inside Steve again and again, then using his mouth, making sure but not having to really make sure now. Steve tried to reassure him. "It's fine now, you don't have to go so gentle, I can take it all now, please don't be gentle…" he would moan between kisses. But, the truth was, Bucky wanted to be sweet with him, because everything around them now was rough, and painful and so goddamn rushed. That this, whatever this night was, it was his and theirs and he wanted to fill it with all the gentle he had left in him because he was sure whatever Zola did to him was slowly but surely gonna kill him anyway. He didn't tell Steve this, he would only worry, and he didn't want that. Instead he kisses the tender spot just below his left earlobe making him moan before he pushes himself fully inside – still gentle, still slow. Callous fingers on roughened hands that were used to end the lives of men were now delicate and deliberate on pale skin, bringing each other to the edge and back again so many times Bucky was sure he was going to pass out, and he knew Steve felt the same. Everything was hot, the room felt like hell's waiting room and they were both covered in a sheen of sweat too just not caring how wrecked they both must have looked because it didn't matter. All that mattered was them being together like this after so, so long, and nothing was going to change that.

Oh how stupid they were.

He felt the dig of Steve's nails on his back as he came, hard and fast with his face buried in his neck to stifle any noise he may have been responsible for. But they were pros at this. Silent sex was something they had had a lot of practice at in places with walls thinner than where they were at that time. Dropping soft kisses to his neck, then his lips as they both struggled to get their breathing under control was one of his favourite things in the world – even more so now that he didn't have to worry about a possible asthma attack.

"We'll go for that drink, proper one, in London. Peggy says there are still pubs there, at least the ones that haven't been bombed out," Steve said as he shifted his one scratchy blanket over them both, nuzzling into Bucky's side like he forgot he was no longer ninety pounds and some bones.

"Hm, what else does Peggy say…" he answered, teasing. It wasn't that they were a sore spot for him, but they also were a sore spot for him. He wanted desperately to not think about what happened once they all went home for good, and instead took what he got when he got it and held Steve tighter.

"Oh come on Buck…"

"No, no I'm interested. She seems like a smart dame, with an ass that won't quit."

That earned him a slap on the arm, like they hadn't just been fucking each other's brains out minutes before. Steve logic was not regular logic, clearly. Bucky heard the slap, felt it, and even remembered laughing before he awakened with a jolt.

One deep breath, then a shallow one, eyes opened to see a room barely lit by the sun rise, casted shadows of yellow and blue through the dark curtains not fully closed. He could hear the rain hit the roof and the window. It was pouring from the heavens just like the night in his dream.

Unlike the night in his dream, he turned and found her there, curled up in a little ball, facing away from him, wrapped up in one of the two heavy quilts on her bed – even in summer. He risked a look at the clock and saw that it was just before six. It was a Sunday so he didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt for sliding closer to her and spooning her next to him. She melted against him, placated and soft, mumbling in her sleep, asking if he was okay.

No, he wasn't okay, but he was really good at faking it.

"I'm fine Peg, go back to sleep, okay?"

"Mmhmm," she agreed, not opening her eyes as he got comfortable, nuzzling his face in her neck, not caring it was also in her hair. The smell of her hair was comforting, familiar and oddly calming, and soon it helped him lull back into what was a dream free sleep, thankfully.

When he woke up again the sun was fully up, and as was Peggy from the looks of the empty bed and the wafting of coffee coming from downstairs. He got up and opened the curtains fully, then the window to air out the room. Then he yanked on some underwear and made his way down stairs. He was stealthy, even for Peggy, a woman that noticed everything, and he could still take her by surprise. He just watched her for a moment, as she sat at her breakfast 'nook, it's a nook Barnes, God, I don't know why it's called that but that's what it's bloody called,' sipping her coffee and looking over the endless supply of case files she carried home with her. In the two years they had 'officially' been doing whatever it was they were doing, this was her routine. Sunday mornings she'd sleep late, get up before him and make breakfast 'a full English, darling, never did anyone any harm,' and he would make lame jokes about her being his full English enough for everyone and they'd have coffee and read the morning papers – or rather she'd go over case files she'd swore by Friday she was never looking at again.

The fifties came, and they had both been glad to see the back of the worst decade of their lives. The fifties promised infrastructure, family, and life after a war. It told them they had won, but it always failed to mention the true cost of that win. He and Peggy remained steadfastly stubborn in the face of their domestic reality. Along with new fashion styles, music and revolutions bubbling beneath the surface, there was also an added pressure – more so than ever before.

Family. Have one, start one, be one.

If you weren't a wife then, gosh darn it, what were you doing with your time? You weren't working sixty hour weeks to get yourself money to get yourself a wife, well then gosh darn it…

Regardless, they both balked in the face of tradition, which was fine at the start, the start of whatever it was they were. Neither had confessed feelings beyond need and affection, beyond the tender nights she held him and let him ramble his worries and regrets away to a sympathetic ear, the nights and mornings he did the same for her. Then he'd go off to work, and she would go off to work – vastly different fields admittedly. He was now a manager of a textile factory, and it was as dull and boring as Dum-dum had once described, and she saved the world and blew up rogue Nazis for a living. So far beyond the traditional anything the world was expecting her to be, and he loved her all the more for it. Beyond this little life they had carved out for themselves, just themselves and no one else. Whatever it was, they both cherished it, even if they were too cowardly to say the words.

Maybe it was because they were scared it would change things, upset the delicate but very real balance they had achieved thus far. Or maybe they were just overgrown babies, terrified of what it meant to really love someone, either way…

"So I think I'll do it," he announced, padding into the kitchen, finally announcing his presence.

"Really? That's great! Decided where yet?"

He shrugged as he poured himself a massive mug of coffee, and peaked at the frying pan. Inhaling the smell of bacon was just the best.

"Narrowed it down to Princeton and maybe NYU. Both of which are just dying for a Commando on their matriculating student body," he mused aloud. He was curious about the courses in Philosophy and Psychology, the latter in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of what the war, and Zola, did to his brain. Though as far as anyone else was concerned it was just an interest, and teamed with the war after effects everyone he served with had experienced, the curiosity was normal.

She smiled then, big and real.

"I'm so proud. You'll love it, I'm sure of it, and it's something to focus on…"

"While you're gone, you can say it," he smiled, knowing this was bugging her. The unspoken topic that had gone ignored for weeks. She was leaving on mission, nothing unusual there, except that setting up a new base of SHIELD in Switzerland was something that wasn't just a week long job, it was months at a time, and as things stood no one knew just how long it would take.

"Ugh, don't remind me."

As they both settled down on the sofa in the living room with the Sunday papers – Peggy liked the politics sections first, so Bucky got the sports - with their coffee and tea respectively, the late morning was spent in comfortable silence until they both finished and decided a walk in the park was just what was needed.

"We can take the car or the train up if you'd like," Peggy mentioned, but he had truthfully zoned out mid walk, focusing on just the other sounds around them. It had been a habit of his since the war, when out walking – alone or with Peggy - entering a new place, switching sides of the street, he always took stock of his surroundings; the people – how many – possible threats, how many vehicles, men versus women, possible causalities, that sort of thing. He knew it wasn't normal. Peggy was a goddamn spy for god sakes and he doubted her brain behaved that way.

"Sorry love, I wasn't listening."

She just nudged him as they walked arm in arm around the park, families, kids, dogs, all playing and picnicking around them, it was summer after all, and this summer like the ones before had a very specific 'to do' list item that never got ignored.

They visited Steve's memorial.

Since they had gotten officially together that New Year's Eve, two more had passed. They planned to go together that first summer only for Peggy to be called away on business for a week, missing the slot – meaning Bucky went alone. The year after that, well, Howard Stark went MIA forcing Peggy to run his side of everything plus her own, missing that one also.

The third year in a row she was determined to be there, to visit with Bucky, together 'come hell or high water, and if Stark thinks he can just bugger off for a week to the bloody arctic again without any notice or warning or even a bloody phone call he can kiss my arse!' Yeah, Peggy had a lot of feelings about missing the anniversary. The two years going it alone since being with her were weird, he could admit it. They knew, he knew, Steve wasn't even in that stupid grave. He wasn't there, but that didn't mean Bucky didn't sit with a half bottle of whatever and converse with him as if he were. The first year there was a lot guilt talk, like 'sorry bud but I'm with Peggy, it's real serious, even if we pretend it's not, she's amazing,' before he'd launch into various death defying shit she had seen and done and how she was just like him, reckless and powerful, and probably giving him a worry ulcer. He hoped that wherever he was Steve wasn't cursing him too loudly for stealing his woman. He hoped…

"I was thinking that navy dress for the wedding? It's fitted, the cleavage isn't too much and I think I have a hat to match somewhere."

Ah, the wedding. The invite had come weeks before, and they had avoided it, glared at it and avoided it some more since then, but it was fast approaching and they had RSVP'd.

"We don't have to go–"

"No, we do. I can't be a coward about this, James. I've blown up whole buildings and rescued scientists from Nazis, I can attend one little society wedding."

She sighed as they took a spot on a bench in the shade, crossing her legs in his direction, the peach fanned out skirt she was wearing riding up a little and showing off some serious leg. He forced himself to look to her face.

Of course she caught him, and fixed the skirt.

He smirked. Because really, it wasn't like he hadn't been so deep inside her hours before that he thought his brain had stopped working altogether, but heaven forbid he peek at her calves in public.

The topic of 'the wedding' had been a funny one for her. Normally, socialising with other couples and friends of his and now theirs was a fine and happy occasion; she was a social butterfly in her own right. This was different, this was a boarding school 'chum' and apparently that meant she was a two faced old shit stirrer who was marrying the crème of New York society, and wanted to rub it in everyone's faces. Many discussions were had as to why Peggy received the invite. She blamed Howard, he had been to blame for all the press SHIELD was getting, and thus Peggy: the female face of the new power in intelligence. She had thrown a glass at his head when he had arranged for it all to be made public, with photos and interviews and the like, almost threw another when they kept insisting on working 'Captain America's would be widow' into the damn pieces. But, it had given Peggy a profile. People knew who she was now – he was beyond proud – even if it annoyed her. Hell, even the President was angling for a meet and greet, but that was another problem entirely.

Bucky had walked off to the ice-cream cart down the path from where they sat and bought them cones. He got her an extra scoop, which got him a smile and a chastising eye all at once.

"Thank you darling, but also no, that dress is unforgiving as hell and I'll be damned if I show up at Shirley Whirley's wedding looking plump."

The nickname had something to do with the girl's corkscrew ginger curls when they were girls, again, he was in truth only half listening on that topic that made Peggy's eye twitch.

"You're anything but plump, and besides with me on your arm all the attention will be on me, we know this."

That earned him a slap on the arm and just made him laugh.

"Seriously, Carter. You need to relax."

"I 'm alxed," she said with a mouthful of chocolate ice-cream, rolling her eyes at herself. "I _am_ relaxed. I just, GOD she was such a little … well … unladylike girl at the time."

That made Bucky laugh out loud and slap his knee. Peggy hated speaking ill of anyone, even the girl that stuffed her into a locker when she was twelve.

"And she's marrying a senator, can you imagine if she became first lady?" she shuddered. "All funding to SHIELD would stop pronto I know that much."

"Hey, come on now, we're not all who we were when we were twelve. Maybe's she changed?"

Peggy scoffed, and it turns out she had reason to, Shirley 'Whirley' Whitman was the eternal twelve year old and the wedding was a goddamn nightmare.

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><p>Notes:<p>

Hoped you enjoyed the update! If so, pop a comment below or even come chill with me on Tumblr! ;) Hope to have more soon! xo


	8. Chapter 8

**_This one is just a little fluffy romp, but I do hope you enjoy! Reviews are actively encouraged ;) _ **

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><p>Soft romantic music played as Bucky held onto Peggy as they danced amongst the sea of couples on the hardwood dance floor. The smell of lavender a comforting constant, as was her hand in his, her other on his chest. He had been a dance partner for various aunts, a grandmother, a cousin and a second cousin of the groom that evening after dinner. Apparently, while the bride wasn't thrilled or in the least bit impressed that she was in the presence of 'a war hero,' the grooms side - the more political side of the two - was. Or at the very least they were impressed by Bucky and his dancing skills - the one aunt had grabbed his ass, so maybe it was different reasoning all around. All he knew was he had been itching to dance with Peggy all day, and he finally had her in his arms.<p>

"Well ... she looks nice?" he offered as the bride bashing commenced.

"Mmm, she's finally found something to defrizz that hair, though with her daddy's and husband's millions it's probably not all that hard."

Yeah, Peggy was in fine form.

"Careful, you're starting to sound bitter," he said with a laugh, placing a soft kiss to her cheek.

"I'm really not, I just … I shouldn't have come. People like her, they just love to look down their noses at everyone, and I hate that on principle, you know that."

He did.

"I don't so much mind her talking down to me, but you–"

"Peggy, I'm a big boy. I can handle the waspy waif for a few more hours, and even at that, if we stay near the bar we may never see her," he added with a wink, thinking that getting her a little liquored up was probably not smart. He gripped her a little tighter, pulling her as close as they could get, and slowed the dance as the music changed to another love song.

"I just feel like I'm twelve years old around her and her friends, is that stupid?"

"No, it's natural I think, she was a childhood … person," he stuttered in search of a word that wasn't a friend nor quite an enemy. Did twelve year olds even have enemies?

Then he recalled Jack Whitmore, the red headed little fucker that beat a twelve year old Steve into the dirt, and decided that yes, they definitely had enemies.

His wording made her laugh into his chest.

"I feel silly, but my god what a cow."

It had started off a nice day, the sun was shining, Peggy was faultless in her fitted and flared navy dress with matching wedding hat and high shoes – Bucky had been a gentleman and let her pick his suit – a newly tailored three piece navy pinstripe, with a white handkerchief. He usually protested when she insisted on buying him just about anything other than food – but on occasions where he knew appearance mattered he put her firmly in charge. There had been a messy dress code misunderstanding about six months after they had started dating, and he had been invited to her cousin's child's christening. It was fancier than he had realised and had shown up straight from work. He felt the sweat prickle on the back of his neck at the recollection of their faces. Peggy, to her credit, laughed and kissed him and embraced him anyway, but he knew she had been at least a little embarrassed then.

The ceremony was lovely, and the reception was fine. Mingling with politicians was never Bucky's strong suit, though he spotted Howard Stark in his element and instantly felt even more uncomfortable. Anywhere where that guy fit in was somewhere Bucky had no right or desire to be.

Then they met the lovely bride and her charming groom, or the 'bride and gloom,' as Peggy had dubbed them after a rather insulting five minute conversation where the bride laughed off Peggy's involvement in the war to being nothing other than the girlfriend of a super soldier. The she had fixed her gaze on Bucky and deemed it 'just gosh darn adorable' that she could 'shack up' with a national icon's best friend and find love 'or whatever it is, as I don't see a ring Pegs!' He had never seen Peggy's smile more strained, or her laugh more false, but with his hand at her back he hoped his silent support was obvious. When they stepped away after what seemed like a lifetime of awkward conversation and forced smiles, he whispered to her a quiet but truthful sentiment.

"Fuck it, just remember both of us could take out the whole room using just the champagne glasses and that ugly ass veil of hers."

That made her giggle so hard she was fixing her makeup by the time they were seated for dinner. They were seated next to Howard and his date Louise. Louise was a Londoner, and a former USO girl. She had known Steve, though she was quick to point out she had only been part of the crew for the English dates, which had lasted all of a month. She had a sweet smile and looked curiously at both Peggy and Bucky as Howard introduced them, before it switched to polite conversation about home for her and Peggy, leaving him to converse awkwardly with Howard.

There were a lot of stretched silences, but they chatted about the weather, the newest cars on the market, travelling, how he'd met Louise 'old friend from the war' which meant they had slept together then and now were giving whatever it was another go. When he excused himself and Louise for a dance, Peggy scooted beside Bucky, handing him a fresh whiskey sour.

"Figured you'd need it. Howard is wonderful in small doses in a non-social setting, otherwise it's just science talk or work talk or scientific work talk," she said with a smile before sipping her own drink. "Lou is nice though," she nodded and he agreed. He had seen her converse with Stark at various times throughout the day, always from across the room or at the bar, always ending in her face changing from neutral to annoyed, him expressing himself in what seemed to be erratic hand gesturing and pouting - and it always ended in her walking away. Maybe she was right, small doses, less freely available alcohol.

"Think they'll last?"

"No, really not. She basically told me its sex and shopping on her part, which is fine for now but he's not the settling type, too involved in his own head."

"The settling kind, I never knew we were defined in such ways," he said jokingly.

"Oh yes, there are a lot of 'kinds' of men; funny ones, stupid ones, horrible ones, great ones," she said, putting her hand on his knee and giving it a little squeeze.

Speaking of which... "She said she knew Steve," he mentioned, trying to sound casual as possible but probably failing. He was on his fifth whiskey at that point and the bar served the good stuff, which meant the usual slow process of getting drunk was moving a lot quicker.

She knew he had missed her compliment, he always missed them, or shooed them away with the inherent modesty that was almost annoying. The mention of Steve made them both sit up straighter, for some reason.

"That she did. We were just discussing her time as part of the dance troop. Lots of tales of bleeding feet and tired legs, but a lot about it being odd to see you in person."

"Me?"

"Yes, Steve would socialise with the girls she said, on occasion for dinner in the questionable hotels they would be housed in, and they had talked a time or two. She said that THE Bucky Barnes was as impressive in the flesh as he was in Steve's stories. She said he told a good story."

"Course he did, his Ma and Da are Irish," Bucky said with a chuckle, and Peggy chose to ignore the blush on his cheeks that flooded right up to his ears.

"Well, either way, seems like you were the star of those stories, not that it's a surprise. He would talk my ear off about you too – even when we first met."

"Really?"

He hadn't known that as she'd never told him, but in the moment she wasn't sure why not.

"Skinny and having issues breathing, that day as we drove from base camp back to Brooklyn, he talked my ear off about you. How good you were, how brave and how 'if Bucky were here…' lots of that. He missed you, he was proud of you."

He cleared his throat in a vain attempt of removing the lump that had found itself there. He put his hand on her knee then too, hoping to reassure the concern on her face that he was okay.

"I …"

"He said 'If Buck was here, he'd probably kick my ass for doing this, but I gotta try, right? Least I can do is try.' And I always admired his bravery. He had to have been terrified you know? But you'd never know it. He just wanted to try his best, try … to be a hero, one that, to him, you already were."

He drained his glass then and she squeezed her hand on his knee tighter.

"I knew nothing of you then, but when I saw him so determined to save you – that hope that you were alive even though everyone and their mother told him different, it was inspiring. Then I met you, beat up, tortured, should have been dying on your feet but you weren't. You were standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder – and that more than anything was what he wanted. He wanted to be a hero, not for me or for Hitler – not really. The only one he wanted to be a hero for, to be equal to, was you."

"Why are you telling me this, Peggy? Why now?" he asked, his voice rough with bottled emotion and top shelf whiskey.

She sighed, taking a large gulp of her drink.

"Because I've had too much to drink, too much talk of the past gets me nostalgic and maudlin. I'm at a wedding with horrible people outweighing the good people – and it reminds me that we've lost a lot of good ones while the shit ones get to keep on breathing. Because of how she spoke to you earlier," she said, nodding to the bride on the dance floor. "Because Steve is the heroic icon remembered worldwide, celebrated for his bravery, his sacrifice … and because you should know how important you are. How inspiring, how much you were loved … how much you … are loved ... by me"

He looked at her then, questioning if he had really heard what he heard.

"Yeah?" He couldn't stop the smile that broke out. They had never really said this to each other, not in the traditional sense at least, both of them seemingly happy to pretend what they had was more casual than it really was. The truth was he spent more time at her place than he did his own, and it had been that way for at least a year, he hated when they took time apart when she was home because he missed her so much when she was on mission. He knew he had loved her for a long time. It was his habit, he fell fast and deep, but she was different and he knew that too, so it remained the fluffy cloud above their heads, unsaid but brimming over with possibilities.

"Yes." She rolled her eyes at herself then, dabbing the tear that managed to escape. "Ignore me, I'm a fool. A drunken fool."

He just slid her from her seat firmly into his lap, his face in her neck.

"A fool that I love, that I'm in love with, very much."

She laughed then, pulling back to look at him.

"Yeah?" she asked in a whisper, mimicking his reaction.

"Yes."

Before he could say much else, she grabbed him and kissed him fervently and with no shame or worry that anyone might see. He really did enjoy drunk Peggy; she was hilariously inhibition free.

"Well shit, had I known this would have been the reaction I would have said it a long time ago," he commented before kissing her again. She laughed into the kiss before she pulled back again, this time standing to yank him on to the dance floor.

"Dance with me, Soldier."

He had a better idea.

The car ride from Camp Leigh to the covert not bookstore in Brooklyn was illuminating for Peggy. She had met Steve on the first day of his basic. He stood out like a sore thumb so it was a little hard not to notice the skinny, starving looking blond with the lovely blue eyes taking just about everything around him in with a look of disbelief and awe on his face. He was a wild card that's for sure, but as she knew better than anyone, it wasn't just the big burly men that fought and won wars, everyone did their part and she was oddly proud that someone with his obvious disadvantages wanted to even participate when he could have easily opted for something a lot safer. Through training and her friendship with Erskine, she found out that he was there for a purpose, and that it was one that he – the good Doctor - was championing, he wanted Steve Rogers to be the test subject for the Super Soldier programme. Admittedly at first she had her reservations, not on character or of integrity - she found his sneaky resourcefulness rather attractive once she learned of the many imaginative ways he applied for the army – but on health concerns. She had read his medical files, of which there were many. The poor man had been through so much and he wasn't even close to thirty. The idea of putting him in as a lab rat for their hair brained idea didn't sit so well with her, less so once she had actually spent some time with him. He was scrappy and sarcastic and unlike what most people assumed, the British did sarcasm very well. It was rather veiled with a level of arse kissing that Peggy was just never all that comfortable with. Steve didn't kiss arse, he was blunt – sometimes to a fault - but he was honest and truly believed that he could in some way, help people.

She remembered what that idealism was like, and it warmed her to see it in him.

He was terrible at talking to women. By his own adorable admission the conversations he'd had with her in that car that day were the longest he'd had with a member of her sex. She was puzzled as to why; surely the women of Brooklyn weren't so shallow as to disregard him completely based on how he looked? Sure, he was shorter than average, and rather delicate in build, but he was smart as whip and funny too, and that was necessary for great conversation.

She realised then that she had spent so long in the company of an army of typical masculine men – in one way or another - that the atypical little guy with the big mouth and bigger vocabulary was a rarity, and one she found attractive. Dating and a love life were a distant memory for her. She would have had no idea what to even look for anymore unless it was right in front of her. but she enjoyed his company, and his eyes, and that was start she figured.

She also figured he was different, in the sense that he may not have had a girlfriend back home waiting for him, but he had a best friend on the front lines, one that Peggy was sure – with each passing minute as Steve spoke of this 'Bucky' and sang his praises - he was a little too attached to. It was a dangerous thing, getting attached to anyone, particularly in a war – particularly when she knew where that particular division was being sent – though she would never say even if she could. But this Bucky ... she imagined at first he was the classic flirtatious soldier, and from Steve's stories, she wasn't wrong. But there was something else, a fondness, affection and a kind of love when he spoke, and the softness of his eyes as he looked at her and then away, the slight smile as he spoke of him ... it all made her feel like this guy was different, as if he were the best guy you could know - one that Steve very much wanted to be like.

"And I was beat you know? God, so beat. Bloody nose, my left eye shut with swelling, pretty sure I broke a rib but there was just no way we could afford a hospital visit, so I stumble the three blocks to my place – our place really by then, and he opens the door and I swear not even my mother could give me the look he'd give me. Dragged me inside, yanked me into the tiny bathroom and fixed about like a clucking mother hen, rambling on and on about my big mouth and how it was gonna get me killed one day." Steve shook his head with a smile. "I figured he shoulda went into medical you know? Man could stitch so neat, didn't even scar – which was a feat considering how many times he patched me back together."

"Sounds like a good person to have around." It was an off the cuff remark, but then a sadness fell over his happy little face and she felt like she'd stepped on a puppy. "I mean…"

"No, he is, really. I mean he'll be great out there you know? Nothin' scares him."

Seemed like Steve getting hurt scared him, but she held her tongue.

"I'm sure he'll make a fantastic soldier then, though a healthy dose of fear is good now and then. Gets the heart rate going."

He laughed then and she found she liked his laugh, though she promptly ignored his lingering gaze on her legs when they fell into a comfortable silence.

"I tell 'em all wrong. If Bucky were here he'd have you charmed and entertained without breaking a sweat."

She looked him in the eye then, to make sure he knew, "You're doing just fine alone, Steve. Just fine." And she smiled when he smiled, a little breathless - a reaction she wanted to take credit for but knew in reality it was probably his asthma.

She had assumed he swung another way, but he was rather enamoured with her legs, her arse – even though he thought she hadn't seen him checking her out just like the rest of them - and her breasts. Though, he was breast level in height, so perhaps that one wasn't so much an attraction and more so a measurement issue. Either way it was clear as day that this Bucky Barnes – the boy with a sweet smile (so she was told) and a peculiar name was very much loved by the boy with the beautiful blue eyes.

She had hoped he survived the experiment, proved the weight in her gut wrong that Stark wasn't completely mental and his genius could win them a war filled with good men – with superpowers of course. Whatever the outcome, she hoped he did well because Barnes deserved to see those eyes when he came home from war.

Peggy knew it was reckless, and probably rude, to be making out in the hallways to the bedrooms of a hotel on the upper east side, but with his lips on her neck and his fingers in her hair, the urge to care about that was slowly becoming a distant nagging.

"We need to go home…"

"Urugh, home … _far_," he said with his usual horny grace, or lack thereof, with his lips on her neck.

"Someone will come by, in a public hallway. This isn't what I want them taking about tomorrow."

With that he relented, grabbing her hand, a naughty glint in his eye as he dragged her down the hallway at a brisk pace.

"Where are we-"

"We're getting a room … sort of."

She swore he was playing Eeny Meeny Miny Moe in his head at the rows of doors in front of them. He settled on one, and brought them to it.

"Stand watch," he whispered with a wink as he brought a small knife and another smaller weapon out of his inner pockets.

That was new.

"You usually travel armed?"

"No, but I usually lock myself out of my apartment, so…" he was jimmying the lock, and it took all of a minute. She was impressed. "They come in handy." He opened the door, then with a glance left and right, ushered her inside the room.

He pushed her up against the door before she had a chance to look inside, or even switch on the light.

"You asked that as if you don't have-" he slid his hand slowly up her dress, hitting her outer thigh, and moving deftly to her inner thigh and sure enough, "_that_ in its usual place!"

With that he flipped on the light, yanking the knife from its sheath and leaving it on the nearest table, a lamp stand behind the door.

"There, there, Bella, you'll go home soon."

Before he could kiss her again, she pulled back, a rightfully confused look on her face.

"Uh, Bella?"

He smiled, ducked closer to kiss her again.

"Bella the Blade."

Peggy just sighed, because really?

"Really? Seriously? You've _named_ my knife?"

"_Blade_," he corrected with a kiss to her neck. "And yes. I also hate that little bitch."

"Why's that?"

She was sure she knew the answer but she wanted to see just how big a nerd she was in love with.

"Because…" He pulled back to kiss her on the mouth before continuing, "she has the best seat in the house."

And there it was.

Peggy sighed again. "What am I going to do with you?"

At that he wriggled his brows.

"Lots of things! Hopefully lots of dirty, naughty, in-some-states-this-is-illegal, things – _Oh_."

In his sweeping hand gestures mid-sentence he had turned away from her, allowing them both to get a good look at the room they had broken into.

_Oh God._

"Barnes, have we commandeered the fucking honeymoon suite?"

The awkward shrug he gave complete with cringe-face is what set her off on a fit of giggles

"Okay this is bad," Peggy admitted, but he was apparently nonplussed.

"So what, it's not like the frigid twosome will be making use of it anyhow."

"Bucky!"

"What? He was totally checking me out before and she's just frosty. You telling me you felt warmth between them? No, for a summer wedding the couple were positively winter. Now, you and I on the other hand..." he grabbed her about the waist and wedged her between himself and what appeared to be an antique writing desk, sturdy, ornate, and the rock to his 'hard place' she was currently caught between.

He lost his train of thought as he littered her neck and tops of her breasts – exposed by the modest neckline of her dress - with hot, open-mouthed kisses and let his left hand slide up her hip, pushing her harder into the desk.

"We can't do this here it's … wrong."

"Mmhm."

"James, I'm serious."

"Yes. I know you use my real name when you're serious, it's _adorable_," he concluded with a small nibble to her earlobe, making her squirm. She pushed him away then, ignoring the utterly wrecked look on his face, the mess of his hair and the crookedness of his tie, ignoring both of their laboured breaths and his obvious arousal, as she paced the room once.

"Peggy, tick-tock. It would be an awful thing if someone was to walk in here right now and find the not bride and not groom … and I _know_ you want me and we _know_ Brooklyn is too far for either of us to wait."

She rolled her eyes at his cocky insinuations, no matter how bloody true.

"Shut up."

"Oh but you do, I know you do, and I know better than to start your engines and leave the motor running unattended."

"I really dislike your car metaphors when you're talking about sex just so you know…"

He just smiled, taking her hand and leading her to the perfectly made bed, with the perfectly scattered rose petals.

"Noted."

They both regarded the other before she slipped off her shoes, unzipping the back of her dress before tiptoeing back over to the desk and hopping atop it. It made him laugh.

"Well, I do like a _little_ danger, what can I say?"

He obediently followed, their eyes never leaving each other.

"Oh I know you do; I've seen the case files."

He snapped the belts on her garter holding up her stockings, shimmied the dress up around her waist, yanking the rest off, exposing her flesh coloured lace bra.

"We aren't shagging in their bed. It would be utterly disrespectful, and we're better than that," she chastised, though he was barely listening as he took in all her splendour.

He licked his lips, which was subconscious now more than anything, before widening her legs, allowing to him settle there, just where she liked him. He rocked against her, heavy and hot and still painfully dressed and not inside her where she would prefer he be.

"Now is not the time to be a bloody tease…"

He wasn't going to tease her. Instead, he was fully intending to bend her over that desk and test out the structural integrity.

And that's exactly what he did.

_Twice_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you andhearts to everyone who has been reviewing this here and on tumblr and spreading it around and what not, you're all dolls and it's so encouraging. Somehow in this chapter I managed a flashback within a flashback...Flashception. IDEK. Enjoy and comment if you fancy it! xox**

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><p>Between the wedding and the trip to Washington Peggy was exhausted, and that was before they began mission prep for London the next week. She had vowed to finish up all the necessary paperwork starting on the Monday she got back from the trip with Bucky. She was making serious headway too, when Howard decided to descend on her office with food for a lunch she hadn't scheduled for.<p>

"No time to eat, Howard," she dismissed without looking up, he of course took matters into his own hands and just lifted the typewriter from the desk.

"Honestly Peggy, your problem solving skills are lacking today," he smiled as he placed it carefully away from her, as if it were the most obvious thing to do.

She just sighed and accepted the artfully made sandwiches and the bottle of pop. He had even brought her an apple.

"Okay, what do you want?"

"Me?" He whistled, attempting to look innocent, before sitting on the other side of her desk and opening out his own lunch box.

He had an actual lunch box; it was red and had a little blue handle.

How odd for a grown man, she thought.

"You always want something and no way are you buying me food or even remembering to eat yourself unless there's something, so, out with it."

He shrugged, taking a large bite of his own lunch. His drink of choice wasn't pop so much as a gin and tonic, but she let it slide.

"How did you enjoy the wedding?"

Vivid flashbacks of that desk in that room and the two of them entered her mind. Thankfully she was skilled enough at keeping a straight face that he didn't catch on.

"Just fine. The end of the night was a welcome reprieve from all the … you know … _people."_

"Yeah, hate people," he sighed.

"Which is why we're in a job to protect them, excellent," she deadpanned.

"No, no you know the world is great, bring it on, the more the merrier is my motto – in all aspects of the human condition."

He winked and she rolled her eyes, this was sadly a normal conversation for them.

"But too many of them all at once in a small space … I just…" he shuddered. "Anyway, uh, Barnes. He seemed to enjoy it."

"Uh huh."

"He seems happy … settled…"

"Uh … huh? Howard…"

"You haven't told him have you?" his tone was now sharp, any affection or kidding around gone. It scared her sometimes how fast he flipped.

"_Howard_…"

"So, no then. You don't think he has the right to know?"

This was an old conversation; one she should have known would have reared its ugly head again sooner or later.

"Tell him what exactly?"

"That there's a search – that there has been a search-"

"Exactly, a search that has been going on for years, Howard, fruitless in all that time! What would be the point? To do what exactly? To get his hopes up like mine are? To make him jump with fear and anticipation and god knows what else every time the Goddamn phone rings? To worry, and over think and hope? God, help me from the hope." She ranted, sure, but he wasn't getting the message any other way.

"And what if we find him? What then?"

"If you find him Stark, and that's a rather arctic sized if, then there will be something to tell. Until then I refuse to ruin his life – he's going back to school, did you know that? He wants to improve himself; he wants to live a life … free from the paralysing hope of a useless wild goose chase."

"You really believe that we'll never find him don't you?"

She got up then, abandoning her lunch and paced to her window, it overlooked Manhattan in all its beauty.

"I hope you will, I grip on to that hope like you wouldn't believe but–"

"But you'd rather I stop?"

She shook her head then, because no, not really. She had lived with the silent hope of his hare-brained idea working for so long she wasn't sure she could take the empty feeling left in its absence.

"No."

He sighed.

"Then why–"

"It's part of the job, just another thing in the endless list of things that I can't and won't discuss with him. The things I've done, the things I've had done to me all in the name of this job Stark – you know better than anyone the secrets we keep and why we keep them."

He nodded.

"So I assume Paperclip–"

She cut him off with a glare; he held his hands up in defense.

"It's why I don't settle…"

"Well, that and you're a whore," she said with a small smile, coming back to her desk.

That got him laughing before he reached over and stole her fruit.

"Fine, you have your reasons and you know him better than I do."

"I do."

He was moving to leave but she stalled him.

"You bringing this up now, does it mean anything?"

"No," he shook his head, a sad expression on his face, "but we're not giving up, not until we find him, not until there's closure."

She wasn't sure how she felt, not really. When he had told her shortly after they had retrieved the Tesseract, that he was in fact continuing the search for Steve, she had been thrown – and had then promptly thrown up in her little steel bin by her desk. Then, years passed as they had a habit of doing, and when nothing ever came of it, it was easy to write it off as another of his mad ideas gone wrong. She figured he would soon get bored and give up, but there were two sides to Howard Stark and the ambitious ruthless side was the one that more often than not won out. This wasn't just a personal mission for him, it was a professional one. Steve – Operation Rebirth - had been, for the lack of better puns, his baby. He wasn't about to let all that science rot in the ice, and it just so happened that the science was wrapped up in his friend.

Summer made way for fall, and it meant that once again Peggy was relocating – only this time she wasn't the only one. Bucky had opted for off campus housing for the first semester, wanting to give the whole experience a try. Luckily his first-hand experience and Howling Commando reputation allowed him a few luxuries, one being a single dorm. He thanked whoever was responsible for that seemingly small but priceless favour. His job took the news of a leave of absence well enough, though they were sad to be losing a good manager and an even better muscle. Bucky had always liked school. Sure, he was easily bored and even easier to distract, but he had always learned quickly and liked reading. This was an opportunity to allow the university to use him for his war experience and tidbits – and use them to find out a little bit more on subjects that interested him. He wasn't so sure what his end game was with being there, even if in the back of his mind it was to understand himself a little more – possibly, hopefully – hope to understand what was done to him both physically and mentally on that table in Italy.

It was an adventure they – he and Peggy - had discussed at length many a night in bed, something that was just his, something they both agreed that he needed. Needed to find out what kind of person he was without war, without Peggy, without the past hanging around his neck. They both agreed it was worth a shot if it led to him finding out what he was good at, besides war. He'd been great at war, the whole not dying thing had proved that – no matter how hard they tried – oh, and the straight as an arrow sharp shooting thing, that too, but he wanted something else.

He needed to believe that he was cut out for something other than violence, than what he had quite possibly been infected with in order to carry out more violence.

A campus visit and a drop off of his stuff saw him heading back to New York, he knew Peggy was still at Stark's building and departing with the man himself that night, but that didn't mean they couldn't have lunch before he returned to pack up the rest of his apartment. He had even more clothes at Peggy's than his own place. Officially they had said all their goodbyes the night before. Well, more to the point, the whole two days before; most of which they spent in her apartment, in her bed, only leaving for food or the bathroom. 'Prolonging the inevitable,' she said. Meetings meant she had another day on American soil and he was going to grab whatever free minutes she had if he could as it would be literally 'God knows how long' before he saw her again, and that shit stunk!

He knew Stark's staff well enough to know that the girl at the front desk - Sheila - loved him, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he brought her a bagel from the bakery a block over every time he called in unannounced.

"They're in a meeting Mr Barnes," she said with a false stern look on her face, even as she accepted the warm baked goods covered in cream cheese wrapped in a paper bag.

"Oh I promise I won't interrupt, I'll just loiter outside her office 'til they let me in."

She rolled her eyes, but smiled.

"Fine, you know where it is by now I assume."

"Yes, Ma'am," he charmed with a smile.

She shooed him on and he all but bounced to the elevator. He was happy, or at least excited for what was to come. Even if Peggy was going to be gone for a few months, he knew it was good for them to have time apart a little. It allowed them both to still be their own people, fiercely independent as they were, before reuniting to be stronger together.

He should have known that the other shoe was about to drop. Life wasn't kind and certainly it wasn't kind to him. It was a trick, a way of making him feel safe and secure, right when they fired the bullet.

The bullet hit his chest in the form or what he saw through the glass walls of her office, her secretary Nina oblivious to how his world was slowly crumbling. He was sweating and he felt as if someone was sitting on his chest.

Arnim Zola standing with a group of men in Peggy's office, smiling, happy – alive. Shaking her hand. Shaking Stark's hand.

_What the fuck was going on?!_

Suddenly it was 1944. Suddenly he was back on that table, the injections, the knives, the shocks and the tests. He couldn't breathe.

"Mr. Barnes, are you alright? Do you want some water? Mr. … Mr. Barnes?"

He knew he was scaring her. Given how he felt he was sure he was blanched white, sweating, and his laboured breaths probably weren't helping to calm her nerves.

"Well … Gentlemen thank you for–" Peggy opened the door mid-sentence, spotted Bucky, and her face once impassive changed to concern. "Bucky? Is everything alright?"

He looked to her, then to the man on her left. That little turd of a human being, standing there all smug and evil, utterly evil, and with Peggy of all people. He was sure his brain was imploding.

"What … Peggy what …" he couldn't breathe. The man met his eyes and he could see him repressing a smile.

"Sergeant Barnes, you look a little unwell."

Peggy then looked from Bucky to Zola – realisation hitting her like a flying brick.

"No…"

The little man moved back then, as if standing behind her would save him. It wouldn't.

He wasn't sure how he did it, or how he got past Peggy without hurting her, but the next thing he knew he was bloody and wrecked, his knuckles raw, and Zola was flying through the double glass of the large corner office Peggy worked out of. There was screaming and attempts to stop him, and those that did got the business end of his fists too. The only thing he truly registered was the look on her face, the gun in her hand, and the throbbing pain in his side.

She tranquilised him.

Peggy was breathless and stunned, not as much as the now unconscious Bucky had been, but stunned nonetheless. The scientist laying half dead on her office floor, surrounded by the remains of the conference table, several chairs, so much blood and glass, still somehow managed to look smug through broken teeth and a smashed nose. The little fucker smiled.

"Magnificent."

Peggy kicked him in the face just for that, knocking him out cold.

She signaled to her agents to move Barnes to the sick bay, and for an ambulance to be called for Zola.

"Agent Carter?" Stark signalled for her, moving down the hall.

"Stark, what the hell is happening right now? We were promised scientists with no contact with American soldiers, that was the deal, a deal might I fucking remind you–"

"Peggy, you don't need to remind me," he said harshly, ushering her into his larger office and slamming the door behind them.

"I'm going to anyway. I hated this idea, it disgusts me, and you know it does and just how much. I want nothing from these men, less so now that it's obvious he has a connection - a connection we both now know the content of to … Bucky … to _Steve_!"

Stark was pacing, a whiskey in his hand, and Peggy helped herself to a shot of gin to calm her nerves.

"I can't be a part of this, if he's the one responsible for–"

"I understand that, but we need him."

"Like _hell_ we do!"

He looked at her then, stern, unmoving, but she wasn't having it.

"No, Stark, no."

"Peggy–"

"No, alright? That's my input as co-director, a position you urged me to take, remember? I was happy enough as an agent on the ground but now you have me in the big chair making bigger decisions. This man is responsible for experiments on American soldiers–"

"One."

"Excuse me?"

"_One_ American. Rather, one that survived. We never knew who it was." He ran his hand through his thoroughly slicked hair. "Until now that is."

Peggy forced herself to sit.

"You knew."

"I knew some, not all. I wanted to talk to him – to Barnes - about it but I do value my life and if the state of our office and of Zola is any indication what he was juiced with was … intriguing."

"Stark, he's a person you're talking about not a zoo animal."

"Which is why you just tranq'd him like a rogue lion, Carter?"

She stood then, balling her hands into fists. He saw it and smartly retreated behind his desk.

"Rather than have him murder a man on my office floor? Because you know he wasn't going to stop, and I won't have him ruin his life over that man, not again."

"You knew about the torture?"

She shook her head.

"I knew parts of the story, from Steve and from James. Never the full extent from either of them, and the files were destroyed in the fire when they escaped the first time. I just … never wanted it to be what I knew it was. A part of me held on to hope that whatever they did to him – whoever it was – that it failed."

"If it failed he'd be dead, long dead."

"I can't do this with you now, I need to see him."

Stark nodded as she placed her empty glass on his coffee table.

"We're wheels up at six, just a reminder."

She paused in the doorway, wanting so badly to give him a piece of her mind, or a piece of her fists. She chose a different route and stormed out and down the twenty floors to the underground medical bay.

Bucky opened his eyes and there was a ceiling, lights, bright and white.

Panic flooded him before he felt her hand on his.

"Hey."

He squinted, turning to look at her.

"You shot me."

"I did."

"Hurt … good aim though." He spoke, rubbing the area she shot - they both knew that bruise was going to hurt.

"Peggy–"

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

He just shook his head, pulling away from her to try and sit up, "My head feels foggy. How much juice was in that dart?"

"Enough to knock out an elephant. Sorry again."

"He dead?"

The cold unfeeling way in which he spoke ran through her, as did the fact that he wouldn't look at her as he sat up on the hospital bed.

"Would it make you happy if he were?"

He didn't react.

"No, he's in hospital – from what I gather it's three broken ribs, two broken arms, six missing teeth, a broken nose–"

"I get it, I did some damage."

"Some? Part of his face is still sitting on my carpet."

"Send me the dry cleaning bill then," he said coolly, standing up and flexing his shoulders til he heard a pop.

"You hardly have a scratch on you."

"Yeah…"

"_Bucky_–"

"You shook his hand, Peggy. You smiled at him and you shook his Goddamn hand. Do you have any idea what those hands did to me? Do you? For days they … he … they kept me there and they injected me and poked at me with knives and tools, and more injections that felt like acid being poured into my veins. They hooked me up to machines, in my brain, in my body, they took me out and painted me with something, I don't even know what, and they stuffed me back in. So I know that you're sorry, I see it in your face, but right now I don't give a damn. You shook his hand, Peg."

"I didn't know he was the one that … had you. There's another war, a very real one on going and we need to use what we have at our disposal, every opportunity to gain an advantage is a plus for the people caught in the crossfire!" She hated how much she sounded like Howard in that moment.

He sighed, stuffing his feet in his shoes that sat underneath the bed.

"No, maybe you didn't know it was at his hand that I suffered, but you knew he'd had others, he'd been top tier in torture Peggy, and look, I know the job isn't easy. I see the bruises and the weariness when you come home. You think I don't but I do. I figured you'd talk about it when you were ready, but this, you're working with the enemy; the one that we sacrificed so much to stop – that Steve sacrificed his life to stop. So you'll have to excuse me if I fail to understand right now what the fuck you think you're doing for the good of the people here."

He pulled on his now torn jacket that hung by the door, still refusing to look at her.

"So this is it then, you're just leaving?"

Still he didn't answer her.

"Jesus, James answer me!"

"What do you want me to say, Peggy?!" he yelled loud enough that the nurse entering the room made a swift exit, closing the door behind her again. "I knew the job came with restrictions but I never thought you'd outright keep this from me, and if you're keeping this from me … well…" he huffed a breath, sarcasm rife in his tone. "Is there anything else you're keeping from me?"

She knew she should have told him there and then, but her original reasoning stood, what would have been the point had the search continued to be as fruitless as it had been since '45? Instead, she stayed silent, not wanting to hurt him more. He knew there was something, the hurt on his face said it all, and she suddenly wanted to shoot something.

"I need to go. We'll … I don't know … talk later I guess." He shook his head as he reached for the door handle.

"I … I'm wheels up in three hours; you know I have to go, right?" she didn't know what to say, but she knew that was probably the wrong thing, a sort of threat wasn't the way to deal with him then, and she screwed it up anyway.

"Yeah, Peggy, I know. The job as always comes first. Believe me, I know." He walked slowly from the room, calm – almost eerily so. There was no shouting, no door slamming and she was sure that the calm was worse, at least when they were passionate in their arguments there was hope.

In that moment, and the ones that followed she felt no such hope.

The bar was deserted; just him and a few old drunks drowning their sorrows. He had switched from whiskey to rum, the warm feel of it burning his throat in that almost uncomfortable way. He remembered the last time he'd had rum, before a war, before his life changed in every direction, before his righteous sickly friend became a national icon, before … before.

"You stole this didn't you?"

He just shrugged.

"Buck? You stole it didn't you? You _did_, I know you did, no way you affording a bottle of this – not this week. Hell, not any week," Steve reasoned from his place on the couch. They sat in the living room – or rather the small square inside the front door before you hit the bedroom and outside the kitchen, but it was a living room for all intents and purposes. Every window in the place was open. It was mid-August the year Bucky turned nineteen, and it was the hottest one on record since the old guys started keeping records. The boys were baking; every apartment on the block was wide open, people practically living on their fire escapes. Arguments, conversations, dogs barking, babies crying, it all filtered through now and then, but for the most part it was the sounds of the city, considering how far up their place was.

"It's a treat. Don't we deserve a treat now and then?" he asked, yanking the bottle back out of Steve's hands. His friend just rolled his eyes.

"I guess."

"You guess? Steve we work hard, we've got to play hard when we can."

"And playing hard is shot gunning stolen rum?" The incredulous look on his face was expected, their idea of fun was tame by anyone's standards.

"You gotta take the kicks where you get 'em, kid."

"You know I hate that, you're a year older than me, _technically_ eleven months and a few weeks, but whatever. Don't call me kid."

Bucky just smirked, ruffling Steve's hair as he got up to shut the window closest to him.

"Bucky, fuckin' stop that shit."

It did nothing but give him the giggles.

"Sorry … _sorry_…"

He wasn't even a little sorry. Steve sometimes was a surly drunk and drunken Bucky found that endlessly amusing.

"Why you shuttin' my window?"

"Because it's hot as balls but you're two weeks from a bad attack and not for nothin' but I don't want to be stuck stuffing you under a sink of hot steam in this heat, so deal with it."

"A chill won't kill me, not in this heat."

"Yeah, we're not taking that chance, no argument."

Steve just rolled his eyes.

It got him a couch cushion to the head for his trouble, which he threw back right away, missing Bucky by a mile because his aim sober was shit – drunk it was even worse.

"Ugh no. Bye," he said, pulling himself up off the lumpy second hand couch that they'd gotten when they moved in since it was still in place from the previous owner. Steve stumbled over to the bed – a bed – their bed really. It had been fashioned in a sense, the two singles pushed together to make a double. At first the reasoning was innocent enough, it got real cold in winter and it made sense to compile their blankets and pillows and what have you. For a long time neither would admit any other reasoning behind the shift. That was until six months before when Steve had almost got himself killed – again. This time over a girl named Sera, or Sheila, he wasn't sure anymore, either way she was being harassed and of course Steve – King of bad choices - decided he could take two guys twice his size.

He couldn't, and he got his ass kicked. He stumbled home half broken, again, and Bucky stitched him up, again. He was getting real good with a needle, if he did say so himself.

It was after that, after the arguments, the silence from Steve, the 'what are you trying to do, prove how big a man you are?' speeches, that when they settled down for the night, still silently ignoring the other that Steve took matters, and Bucky into his own hands. He'll never forget how scared he was, how he could feel his heart doing the freakin' polka in his chest when Steve faced him, looking at him in nothing but the orange light through the window from the street lamp outside. He studied him for a long time, his brows knitted together until Bucky eventually told him to quit it, "Take a picture Rogers, it'll last longer, now shut your eyes and sleep…"

He didn't though, instead he just reached over, putting his cold hand to Bucky's warm face – getting warmer as the flush of fear and excitement and danger flooded through him.

"Rogers, I swear to God."

"Shut up, okay? Just … shut up," he whispered back before Bucky gave up the fake sleep he was in and opened his eyes too. The breath knocked out of his lungs when he saw a look on Steve's face he'd never seen before.

"Steve–"

"Why do you take care of me?" he asked, softly, almost inaudibly.

Bucky swallowed hard.

"What? Shut up and go to sleep, Jesus."

"Why do you take care of me, Buck?"

_Because I love you, because you're my best friend, because I love you._

"Because you're an idiot, that's why. Now go to fuckin' sleep."

He heard Steve sigh, turning away from him, and for a second he thought he'd won that round. Steve still didn't know, wouldn't know, and Bucky closed his eyes again. Except, Steve was Steve and Steve was a little shit that didn't know when to give up. He turned back to face Bucky again and this time he made it known that he was wanting his attention by poking him in the chest.

That got annoying real fast.

"Jesus Harry Christ, Rogers, what?!"

"_Why_ do you take care of me?!"

Maybe he was concussed, maybe his brain just got bashed one too many times. Either way, he wasn't giving up and he wasn't backing down. There was a sinking feeling in Bucky's stomach that it was now or never.

It was now, it was then. Instead of answering him with words he did something – else.

He grabbed Steve by the back of the neck and kissed him, once, softly but with enough oomph to send the message. He backed away, awaiting the punch in the jaw that never came.

"I … I take care of you because that's just how it is, you take care of me too, and that's just how it is. It's you and me … no matter how much I try to shake it. It's you … and me. Got that?" He wasn't sure even he got that, but he was in a state of shock at himself in that moment.

Steve was beet red, even lit up only by the fading orange light outside. His mouth was agape, but not in a bad way, not in that righteous pained away it got when he saw something that upset him.

"_Oh_…"

"Yeah, oh."

Flight or fight was rushing through Bucky in that moment, so very unsure of what happened next. Thankfully though, he didn't have to decide what happened next because Steve just smiled that stupidly endearing smile where he ducked his head and blinked, right before he put his hand on Bucky's face again, this time with purpose.

Steve leaned in and brushed his lips against his, once, twice, warm and wet and so unsure. Neither of them had closed their eyes, not at first, but then, he figured being the one that initiated this he should show him the ropes. The last person Steve had practiced kissing with was Mandy Gold in seventh grade. After that, it was all bets off between them. Messy make out sessions and a lot of rubbing against each other 'til orgasm right up until that night with the rum. Maybe it was Dutch courage, maybe it was plain stupid, he would never know. All he knew was he associated rum with a good memory, one he never wanted to forget.

"I'm drunk." Steve announced from his side of the bed, pillow over his face.

"Yes you are," Bucky agreed because, well, he wasn't a liar.

"So drunk. Drinkity drunk. Ha that's funny. Am I funny drunk or a stupid drunk?"

"A funny stupid drunk, which you know, is weird since you're so aggressive sober, you'd think you'd be a fucking cracker drunk, but nope – all maudlin and pun-cracking and handsy."

"_Tut_."

"Don't tut at me, you know you're handsy."

Steve just glared from his spot on the bed as Bucky moseyed over, wobbly as it were, almost finished bottle still in hand.

"You're just as bad as me don't lie."

"Not gonna," he said throwing himself on the squeaky mattress with little to no grace. "I'm all hands, and mouth and everywhere else." He smiled to himself, because well, alcohol.

He put the bottle down on the floor before returning to his original position, on his side of the bed, facing Steve.

"Hey Steve?"

"Hm?"

"Wanna make out?"

"With _you_?" Steve's disgusted look got him a pillow in the face before both of them started laughing, Steve slowly taking Bucky's hand in his. "If we're gonna, we need to close the widows and stuff."

The fear, it never fully went away, he hated that, hated that nothing intimate between them could be spontaneous. Begrudgingly, he got up and shut the windows, leaving one ajar, but closed the curtains.

He got as far as the bed before Steve, using just about all the strength he possessed, pulled him down beside him, though he moved instantly on top of him, arms wrapped around his neck, lips to lips. He smelled like his soap and the rum, and in that moment Bucky loved both of those smells more than anything.

"Hi…" Steve said with a lopsided drunken smile, which Bucky was sure he matched as he spoke the same word before kissing him again, hard and fast, pushing him onto the pillow, straddling him as gently as possible.

"_Hi_," he breathed out, their chests touching.

"You don't have to be so easy on me," Steve spoke, gasping from just being gently tussled to the mattress again. "I can take it..." his mouth said their wrestling, his eyes said everything else Bucky wanted to give him.

"Yeah I'll bet you could," Bucky groaned, grinding down on his friend; both of them sadly still wearing pants. His hands on Steve's belt started to take care of that issue though, "But no."

Steve just huffed. Bucky didn't give a damn if he pouted about it – in fact he kind of liked it when he did. Fact was when they messed around they never went further than touching and sucking each other off. At first, it was chalked up to just that, messing around, some release, to pass the time. But neither of them was as stupid or as naive as they pretended to be at times like right then. And that night, everything changed. They didn't stop after sucking each other off. They didn't stop at the licking and touching and opening the other up and making them come all over themselves, squirm and moan into the pillow below them, no, that night was different.

"I don't … don't … want to stop, never wanna stop-" Incoherency was a thing with them, Bucky realised as he gasped for air as Steve worked him over with his mouth again. Beyond stifling moans and gasps as best they could – paper thin walls were the devil, there wasn't much talk until after, that night after became the before of everything else. Bucky wouldn't fuck Steve, as much as he really, really wanted to. They both knew the risks were greater and that Bucky weighed a lot more than Steve regardless of any of the health issues tossed into the mix. That didn't mean he didn't want Steve to be the one to fuck him, but Steve was still on his stubborn streak, insisting that he could take everything Bucky could give him, and then some. Bucky didn't trust himself to be as gentle as he needed to be in the heat of the moment, so it was a solid no, with the option to be the one to do the fucking.

Bucky huffed at his friend, enticing him with a leering led conversation on how he didn't know a man this side of Brooklyn he'd need to 'actively convince to fuck me like I gotta fucking convince you, if you don't want me I know more than enough men that would gladly take me.' Steve, being the possessive little bastard that he was, took the bait and began working Bucky into a frenzy.

Bucky trembled, staring glassy eyed at Steve as he pushed his fingers inside him, covered in Vaseline and providing every nerve in his body with a tingling heavenly sensation. Bucky kept himself rigid, gasping and moaning as the warmth coiling in his belly ebbed and flowed forcing him to shut his eyes and bite his lip to keep his sounds down. That night, having Steve inside him – essentially losing his virginity to Bucky – though neither of them would talk about exactly what it meant to both of them – a conversation he regretted not having every day since. The laughs and the awkwardness of it all somehow didn't matter, not to them, nothing about the faltered rhythm or leg cramps or the fact that Steve bit his tongue so hard his eyes watered… None of it mattered more than what they had decided to trust each other enough to do together. He had wanted to hold on to him afterward, after they had reached for the wet cloth by the bed and wiped each other down and struggled to find the energy to just climb under the blankets together. He had so desperately wanted to tell him how he felt – how much he loved him. But the words died in his throat, and the sparkly fucked-out look in Steve's eyes faded out to a memory of the last time he saw him, that last day before they set off on what would be his suicide mission.

Bucky woke up with a hangover and filled with nothing but regret. Regret for Steve, and now fresh regret for Peggy, the happy memory of those two idiot boys in Brooklyn fading with the sun as he realised he had slept most of the day having drunk his body weight in rum the night before.

Regret, it tasted bitter, as usual.

Notes:

Uh-oh? I'll say this, next chapter should feature another old friend, this one a lot more welcome than the last though ;)


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky gets kissed unexpectantly, Peggy could rule the world, and Howard finds something in the ice.

* * *

><p>In the month that he had been taking classes, he was happy to find he had fallen into a routine of sorts – though a boring one at that. Classes, library, food, sleep, reading – lather, rinse, repeat - for four whole weeks. Not that he was complaining; he could have used a little boring to come down from the utter panic he had felt constantly after the incident with Zola, and subsequently with Peggy.<p>

_Peggy_.

God, he knew deep down that she didn't mean to betray him in any way, least of all in that way, least of all in the worst way possible. But in his mind – in his fucked up, Zola diddled mind - he felt betrayed and angry and devastated, all of which was directed at her and her actions. So angry was he in fact that when the letter came to his dorm addressed to him in what was her perfectly meticulous hand, he threw it in the trash. He threw it in the trash, took a walk around the university, came back, and took it out of the trash. It sat, staring at him from his cork board ever since. His anger at her had faded, slowly, and it was replaced by a dull empty ache of loss, something he wasn't sure he could deal with, or if he even knew how.

"Hey Bucky?" A knock came to his door that was shortly followed by a head and a smiley face that belonged to Jack Grimes, a second year teaching assistant in one of his psych classes. He was around Bucky's age, closer to it anyway than the other Freshmen in his class that was, and so the two had found each other and enabled a coffee addiction in the other from week one.

"Hey we're heading down to the diner in a bit, just me and Tommy and his roommate Cal. We were wondering if you'd wanna go? You eat right? I've never seen you eat, I told them you exist on coffee and despair alone…"

Yeah, he was a smartass.

"I eat," he deadpanned, getting a grin in return.

"Well I'll be damned," he grinned. "If you wanna eat with other humans, you know, for a change, we're going in fifteen, because Cal is a momma's boy and needs to finish his letter to her first. God forbid he miss a week of filling her in on every droll detail of his life…" he rolled his eyes at this Cal, making Bucky smile.

"Sure thing, I'm starving actually."

"Excellent, come get in five, 'k?"

Bucky nodded and his … friend? Classmate? Sorta-tour-guide? Well, Jack, at any rate, left with a smile. He'd met Jack on the first day; his lost-freshman look he said didn't suit a guy so old. He could have taken offense, except that it was painfully true. Bucky wasn't straight out of high school, he was straight out of a factory where he went straight out of a world war. These … kids … though they were only a few years younger, they seemed to be a different species. Kind of like in the comics he read as a kid, you know, before he became a character in a comic himself.

He never allowed himself to think of today's kids seeing him as some kind of hero, it didn't much sit well with him. Steve on the other hand, yeah he was the hero.

As it turns out Jack and his crew were sort of great, like really great. Great in the sense that they clearly knew his name, knew his reputation, but unlike his next door dorm neighbour and those three terrifying freshmen girls, they never mentioned Steve, or the Commandos, or the war even. It was pretty great to just pretend to be a regular guy, even for a while.

"And this mook, well he just up and fell right in, it was like watching something in a movie I swear to God–" Jack began, but stopped when he started to laugh.

"I realised it was happening and it was as if I was powerless to stop, and so yeah, I ended up face first in a rather large batch of cow manure, which can I just say, took three showers and most of my sister's fancy soap to scrub off."

"Yeah, you smelled real ladylike for a few days, which made a change from smelling like shit like you usually do – only then I guess it wasn't you shit-"

"You're so funny, oh wait, no – you're not." Cal – the self-professed mamma's boy - was also it seems a bit of a klutz. It made for some good stories though. He hadn't recalled laughing with a bunch of men since … well since the fireside adventures of Dugan and the crew from their time tramping around Europe. Those chats never had the carefree, safe feeling he had in that diner, but they were still amazing.

"You'll get used to them, you know? I mean if you don't make many freshmen buds, we're always around. We know the place too so if you're ever lost just come get one of us or somethin' you know?" Jack offered as they walked back to the dorm building. "As a TA I get my own dorm too, and let me tell you, you lucked out getting it as a freshman, people would … I'm pretty sure, kill, for one of those." He smiled and nodded as if to make his point, his floppy dirty blonde hair moving with him.

"Oh yeah?"

"Hell yeah, I mean not for nothing but my freshman roomie was a doll-dizzy fat head whose father was loaded. I didn't get a minute's peace to study never mind sleep. I knew though, I was here on my own dime, well, and a scholarship and my family's piece of the money puzzle too but we weren't loaded like he was. It was a nightmare." He rolled his eyes at the memory.

Bucky could see how that would be annoying though he was instantly reminded – as most things tended to do - of Steve and his pouty face before they became a thing, how angry he got but tried to hide it. Bucky fed off that anger for longer than he cared to admit, even to himself.

"Yeah, so you don't have a girl then?" They had reached the steps, Bucky's room was to the left, Jack's to the right, they took the stairs two at a time each, still holding conversation.

"Me? Oh, nah, I uh … I gotta focus, you know? I get a lot of guys are lookin' for a wife before their balls even drop but I've got plans first."

"Smart."

"What uh … I mean, do you?"

Bucky raised a brow before the other man continued. The hallways were all but empty now, and eerie at times he thought.

"Do you have a girl I mean, not that it's my business but since we're talkin and you don't wear a ring … and a good lookin' guy like you is bound to have someone right?"

Bucky just grinned, pushing the weight of all his Peggy shaped pain down as far as it would go.

"Uh, no I guess."

"You _guess_? That sounds … confusing."

He just shook his head.

"I mean I did, but now I don't."

"Rough breakup?"

No, not really, there was no official breakup, which really made things that much worse – if they could even get that way.

"I guess it's complicated."

The other man merely nodded before patting him on the shoulder.

"It's rough, I get that. If you need to … I was gonna say talk but that would be weird right? I mean talking to me about your breakup? That's … yeah that's weird so I'm not gonna say that, but I will say that me and the guys are going to this club in the city on Saturday – one of the weekends I'm not training after classes, so we're gonna take advantage. If … I mean if you're not busy you should come." He laughed, and it was clear to Bucky then the guy was nervous. He hadn't meant to intimidate the man. So he agreed, if he could get started on his essays and such, he would take a few hours and go dancing. In truth his heart just wasn't in it like theirs were. His heart was pretty much broken and unable to step up for much other than keeping him alive, mores the pity, he thought sometimes.

He got back to his room, lit only by the small lap by his small bed and he glanced as he always did at the letter pinned to the board. Maybe he'd work up the courage of heart to read it, but right then wasn't the right time. Instead he passed out on the bed a few minutes later still in his clothes.

(())

A week sorting out a mess at the SHIELD base in London had derailed Peggy's schedule completely. Howard was suspiciously MIA on and off once more, and that left her with the handful of new agents who were as wet behind the ears as a bloody mermaid. Leaving her with only two other competent agents that she had all but nabbed from the London office for assistance, she knew from the outset that setting up the new base in Switzerland was going to be a tough one.

She knew she was being a crotchety old cow to everyone involved, and she had scared off Ron the translator more than once in the six weeks since she'd been on the ground, but really, he was a bit of an idiot anyway. It wasn't her fault that she had to be the one to point it out!

"MARIA?!" she bellowed from her office, paper threatening to trap her there in an avalanche of former trees.

"Yes Ma'am?" The blonde's head popped around the door a second later, pushing as hard as she could to even get the thing to open. God, she needed three pairs of hands.

"First of all, stop calling me that, second of all what are you doing out there?"

"Well I–"

"Is it saving a life or somehow annoying Howard?"

"Neither of those things Ma'a … Peggy."

She smiled then, finally looking up from the three smallish stacks of paper on her desk.

"Excellent, far be it from me to stop you from either of _those_ things. Cancel whatever it is you are actually doing and while you're at it, grab Ron, we need to sort out these files and those intel briefings and those … you know what, we need to just sort this bloody place out. Okay?"

The blonde nodded before smiling and exiting the room. She would return five minutes later with Ron and Barry, the newest hire from the week before. He was a data analyst, and somehow she had convinced him that sorting the data was the first task before analysing it.

Peggy liked Maria Collins Carbonell very much; she could bullshit as well as Peggy but not half as much as Howard. She was glad she'd nabbed her from London.

She was exhausted, which wasn't so unusual, but what was unusual for her was the heavy heart that kept her company after work. She hadn't felt this heartbroken since the war, since Steve, and even then it was somehow less of a heartbreak of losing him as a partner and lover as it was all the possibilities she lost with him. This was different. Even her first love hadn't made her heart hurt as much as Bucky Barnes had by his deafening silence. It had taken her four tries before she had finished a draft of the letter it would then take her three trips to the post box to actually post, the least he could do she thought, was reply. Even if it was to tell her that she was a fucking idiot and he never wanted to see her again, it would, she imagined, be less painful than the silence.

Peggy hated silence. The record player was her company most nights, that and the endless reading she had to do for work, after work.

'The job always comes first, believe me, I know.'

His words had echoed in her head since that day, the day with Zola and the whole mess. A mess that sent Stark on one of his no-sleep binges off in search of files long since lost, determined to find out what possible derivative they could have given Bucky, off no doubt in cahoots with Zola himself much to her disgust.

"Any personal mail?" She asked Ellie the next morning, and unsurprisingly there was none. Ellie was a new recruit, a native of their current location in Geneva.

"No, but there are three separate telegrams from Mr. Stark," she said, placing them and a new stack of papers on her desk. "Your next round of interviews starts at one. Maria reminded me to remind you to eat beforehand otherwise no one will be good enough."

That earned her a sharp look to which the girl held her now free hands up in defense.

"Her words…"

"Yes, thank you Ellie."

The girl, and she was a girl, no more than nineteen, was tall – lanky she even might say - beyond uncomfortable in a skirt and Peggy knew how that felt. She had shoulder length black hair and dark brown eyes against the palest skin Peggy had recalled since her own. She was sweet day to day and whip sharp, speaking four languages and excelling at field work all proven within the six week evaluation period.

She was a keeper.

Finding the male counterparts however was proving to be a task in and of itself.

Was it her fault that her standard was Steve Rogers and James Barnes?

Not really, no.

He drank a bottle of whatever it was that Jack kept in his room. They had mapped out three papers and gone over notes for two classes. He remembered none of it. He was pretty sure his handwriting was just scribbles, and by the time he all but stumbled back to his side of the corridor, he was a little giddy.

And stupid.

Mostly stupid.

Because right then was when he deemed himself brave enough to open the damn letter.

Not his finest moment, admittedly.

'_James_,' she'd started, her loopy elegant hand neat and pretty just like her from the off, '_with how we left things and with Howard's obsessive thing with keeping time in the air, it left me little choice but to do this on paper rather than in person as I would have liked. Not that I would have liked saying these things in any medium … regardless of how it's said, I feel the need to say it once more._

_I am sorry._

_I'm sorry for what happened to you, I am sorry we failed to protect you and so many others in that time, from those men, and I am sorry I failed to protect you from him today. Barnes, you're an important part of my life, and if my job, my promise to the people, makes it seem like you don't matter then you're wrong. I don't have all the answers, or even all the questions, but I'm bloody well sure going to keep asking them. If that means that's it for us, then so be it.'_ She had attached an address and a secure line number, ending it with a phrase where she leaned extra heavy on her pen, _'Hope to hear from you soon, Love Carter.'_

God he missed her, he loved her and he missed her. He was tired of missing people he loved.

So, he did the second or maybe third (if you counted drinking whatever moonshine shit Jack offered him and he was definitely counting it) stupid thing of the night and left the dorm, letter in hand, and found his way to the exit level where the payphone was situated. Thankfully at that time of the morning the phone was free, as was the hallway. He cleared his throat and pushed back the tears that were burning to break free, and he spoke clearly to the operator asking to be connected for such a long distance call. He attempted to calculate the time difference and failed. He figured it was later than it was there but not so late as to be offensive.

Besides, it was an intelligence agency, they had people to answer their phones – he assumed.

The phone rang for a while, and his nerves hiked with each passing second before a sweet sounding girl answered the call.

"Uhm, may I speak with Pe – Agent Margaret Carter please?"

"May I ask who is calling?"

"Barnes," was all he offered, and it was apparently enough.

"One moment please, sir."

There was some clicking and then some more ringing, and then he heard her voice. First time in a month he remembered, taking a deep breath.

"James?"

"Peggy, hey."

"Uh … hello?" she sounded unsure and it wasn't like he could blame her, she'd gone six weeks thinking he had finished things with her without a word.

"I'm an idiot," he admitted right off the bat.

She laughed lightly at that before speaking, "Usually I would disagree, but then usually it doesn't take you almost two months to–"

"I just read the letter tonight," he confessed breathlessly, sliding against the wall, fishing more change out of his pockets.

"_Oh_ … I see."

"I wanted to, before, but I was angry and I almost threw it away because I was so angry."

"I am sorry, I meant that–"

"I know you did, Carter. I know you didn't mean … that it wasn't done to hurt me, and hey, the asshole is the only person alive that knows what they did to me so maybe it's a sign."

"A sign of what exactly?"

"That I can't keep running from this, this … the only nightmare I've had since '45. It's honestly … I … it terrifies me, Peg. What he did to me, what it did to me, what it's DOING to me."

"Bucky … what do you think it's doing to you?" she asked, softly, full of concern.

"I think it's killing me," he confessed for the first time, and a weight lifted from him in that moment. He heard her gasp then, though she attempted to hide it. He heard a sniffle too, and that set him off again, the fucking tears stinging so hard he just let them fall.

"I think it's killing me from the inside out, Peggy and I'm so scared to find out if I'm right. I haven't felt like me since that day Steve dragged me off that table and he … he was the only one I told exactly what they did to me … and even he had no idea of just how bad it was." He was silently sobbing then, as was she and for a few seconds neither of them could speak.

"I'm coming home," Peggy said then, her voice strong as ever. "I … have stuff here but it can wait."

"Peggy, no."

"Yes, this is important … you … _God_, you have to know you're more important to me than–"

"I do know, I do, I was just angry. Peggy I got with you knowing you aren't the girl that's gonna chain herself to a damn stove and try to please the world with tradition and it's a huge part of why I love you. Your job is to save the world, and you're doing _that_, end of conversation."

"But if I'm saving the world, who's saving you?"

He smiled then, picturing her resolved face, feeling lighter by the second. They stayed on the line for about an hour after she called him back. Had he known he would have gotten a hell of a lost more change to keep the conversation going, but as it stood they resorted to her calling him. She finally agreed not to rush home, that now that things were better – not perfect or fixed, but better between them – he assured her he was going to be fine. He was working through some stuff, and being alone made that easier. She understood, she was a hell of a woman really, and he knew that too. They agreed on times for calls, and that he would write now that he had extracted his head from his ass.

It was good to make her laugh again, he could picture her hiding her mouth with her hands in the way that she did, even though she had a beautiful smile.

"How many dead?" Peggy asked as Dugan came to her side, and Morita, Jones, Falsworth and Dernier took the perimeter. The latter members of the former Howling Commandos had been a score on her part. Bringing them back for SHIELD had landed her brownie points with Stark, as well as those from the SSR funding the division. It gave her unit gravitas and recognition, as well as a battlefield connection to their cash cow that was the Captain America persona, one they kept milking at home still for all its nostalgic worth.

"Twenty-four so far, sixteen captured. They're being brought back for interrogation as we speak, the rest of the files have been blasted or lost – we have Falsworth and Jones heading there after a border check."

Peggy nodded, noting the clearing in front of her. At first it was just a field, one with a steep hill - a hill that opened up to a secret Hydra base. It had taken them six hours to take the entire base and its operatives, not her best time by a long shot, but one that showed the new recruits the basics without the safety net of a training exercise. Some, she noted, were ashen and shocked looking as they sat on the grass together.

"Fine job then, get them some water will you? I'm sure Gold is going to pass out and I'm not carrying her arse back to camp."

Dum-Dum smiled then, patting her hard on the back as normal, before going to see to the babes in the wood. Peggy assessed the damage and the loot once more. There were artifacts buried within the base, the same blue glow of the tesseract, and that in itself alarmed her more than she was trying to let on. They had liquefied it.

"Let's clean up and ship out, shall we? We don't have all day!" she announced to the rest of the agents on the ground. Stark had a standard clean-up crew for ops like this one, and they were due to arrive to whitewash their deeds here in ten minutes. Peggy liked to remain ignorant as to what that clean up actually entailed. She got the important items, and Hydra members to question. As far as she was concerned her job there was done for the day.

"A toast then, to the birthday girl. May she get a good night's sleep if nothing else!" Peggy announced as she stood at the table in what had become their regular bar back in Geneva, having travelled to the outskirts of Austria, they were all fit for nothing but a few drinks and nibbles the night of Ellie's birthday. Maria had baked cupcakes though, so that was nice. In truth, Peggy just wanted to get back to her flat in town, and hopefully catch Bucky before class, though she tried to be a present friend and not a distracted one for as long as she could before she made her excuses and took her leave. With Stark still MIA she had another early start anyway and everyone understood.

"But you were trained for the same thing, Bucky!"

"No, it's _inherently_ different-"

"So you weren't taken to a camp down south or whatever and trained to hit targets – targets that would become real men?"

"Yes but–"

"So then it's the same thing, just from a different perspective you were their enemy," Jack argued with him, the same argument that had been going on for at least twenty minutes as they sat in his dorm room, planning Bucky's end of term essay. He had chosen psychological war on the soldiers as a non-too subtle topic of research.

"There's an immense difference between those who enjoy killing and those who have been conditioned to kill under specific circumstances. Military training does the latter. It allows you to overcome resistance to killing under orders. We didn't just start sniping everyone around us in enemy territory, Jack."

He held up his hands then, and the bottle of his poison, one that Bucky was sadly getting a taste for. He took a long slug before settling back down on the carpet again.

"Sorry Buck, you would know more than I would after all. You were there and lived it, I just read about it."

The hairs on Bucky's neck stood on edge when Jack called him by the name that only Steve ever used. He took levelled breaths trying to keep his face neutral.

"No, its fine. I mean we all lived it, right? All did our part."

"I was too young just by a year to get the draft, my folks were so relieved."

Bucky nodded. He understood that. Sadly, his folks were gone by the time he got back; pneumonia taking his mother, and a heart attack taking his father six months later. Those letters had been brutal. He remembered the nights he spent in Steve's arms then, doing nothing but sobbing like a little kid.

"I still … I mean I know you talk about 'Steve' and we all pretend we don't know who he really was."

He got sharp then, hating that the legend meant more to people than the man.

"He was really just Steve, to the people that knew him at least. The Captain shit came later."

His friend nodded, looking properly chastised.

"Sorry…"

"No … Shit, don't mind me. I'm not drinking anymore; I'm a grumpy drunk, so Peggy says."

Jack smiled.

"She sounds like a smart dame."

"She is, terrifyingly so. She could rule the world I'm pretty sure."

"You love her?" he asked, taking a swig.

That was an easy one.

"Yeah I really do," he smiled, despite himself.

Jack took another large slug of the alcohol before asking something that would have floored Bucky, had he not been sitting on it.

"You love her like you love Steve?"

Bucky's mouth fell agape, but before he could fully formulate an answer, Jack's mouth was on his, kissing his softly, but aggressive enough to let him know what his ultimate intentions were.

Holy actual shit!

Bucky shot backward, eyebrows knitted together in obvious confusion.

"What the hell?!"

His friend just sighed.

"Come on Bucky, it's obvious to me that you're into guys too… I mean, Peggy sounds swell and all, but the way you talk about Captain America–"

"_Steve_."

"Steve … you were in love with him too, and I get what that's like, to be in love with your best friend, but he doesn't have to be the only guy for you."

Bucky scrambled to his feet then, lifting his notebooks and stuffing them into his book bag.

"You have no clue what you're talking about." He was flustered and red, and sweating. He was pretty sure his heart was beating out of his chest too.

_Jesus_.

"Bucky, come on, you don't have to lie to me. It's okay, I went through something similar with my friend Mark. It was hell … I mean he wasn't a national icon of war or a hero or anything that you guys are, but losing him still hurt–"

"Stop talking _now_."

Why was he having such an issue getting the Goddamn books into the bag? The overwhelming urge to smash something was making him shake.

"Look, I'm sorry I just sprung this on you, but I figured you liked me too–"

He looked at him then.

"I do, you're my friend, and I usually like my friends, it's how we become friends you know? Christ, this is so over the line of anything–"

"I feel the chemistry and I know you do too. I'm just saying it doesn't have to go ignored, I would never out you to anyone. Hell, I'm risking everything just by putting myself out here like this you know? But I figured you'd understand."

Oh he understood all too damn well the risk of telling the truth. He wouldn't do that to Steve, not when he wasn't here to do it himself.

"I…"

"Bucky, I'm real sorry if I read this wrong okay? I just like you and I figured–"

"You figured wrong. I'm sorry, but nothing of what you said is even remotely true. Steve and I were best friends, brothers … nothing more. I'm sorry if you're starting to believe the whispers of the freshmen girls in war history." He felt the bile rise in his throat at the lie, but had no other option.

With that he finally got his shit together, and left as quietly as he could. He locked himself in his dorm for the next full day. He wasn't sure how to face the world as a barefaced liar.

Peggy was dead on her feet as Stark's driver dropped her off at her door, a full two weeks before Christmas this time, and the first time she'd seen home in months. There was snow on the ground as she had expected, and the bitter cold did nothing to her warm heart at the sight of New York, the sight of Brooklyn. She pushed her way up the steps with her luggage trailing, fully expecting to come home to an empty house. Instead, she came home and caught him attempting to exit through the back.

"I was trying to not be here when you got back, but–"

"Hello to you too?" she offered as they stood now in her hallway, awkwardly.

"Hi," he smiled and God that was a sight for sore eyes. "I uh … just wanted this place to be warm when you got in, also there's food."

She wanted to cry. It had been so long since someone had done something so nice and for just her.

"You … don't have a key though."

And he didn't. After all their time together and apart, he didn't have a key. Nothing official had ever been asked and she knew now that was a damn shame.

"As if that's ever stopped me," he said with a cheeky grin and God, she desperately wanted to kiss him.

"I … thank you for …" she waved her hand to her warm and inviting living room, lit by the roaring fire and enticing her in with the smell of what she knew was the delicious Irish Stew – Steve's mother's apparently - on the stove.

"No problem. I should go, I know you like some alone time when you come home from this sort of thing."

She did, usually. To decompress, have a bath and some silence, before she attempted civilian life again. This was different though, she had been without him enough and his lingering told her he felt the same.

"Stay, eat with me. You've gone to all the trouble of cooking, and you should eat." She slipped off her boots and her coat, discarding her luggage and padding into the kitchen to serve the food, he followed her silently.

They took their bowls and a seat each at her little nook, eating in the same silence for a few minutes. Peggy all but devoured her dinner.

"Good?" he asked with a smile before heading to the fridge to bring out the milk. He even remembered the milk!

"So 'od," she said with a mouthful, making him laugh.

"Good. Glad you like it."

"Thank you again for … well … welcoming me home."

He just shrugged.

"You never remember to buy food."

She smiled then. He knew her well, sleep prioritised over food when she got home at first. A bad habit admittedly.

They had just started to talk about Bucky's end of term exams when he shushed her, a serious look on his face.

Before she knew what was happening he had pushed her head into the wall to her right, dodging with her to miss a flying knife.

They both turned to see a man in black, including a balaclava wielding a Pistol Marakova and another knife. Peggy used her own customised blade she kept betwixt her thighs, stabbing him in the neck and knocking him sideways onto her couch. Before she could even react, Bucky had popped the floorboard in the kitchen, throwing her a weapon from the spare arsenal she kept there, and grabbing the two prototype USP's Stark came out with that she kept taped to the back of her fridge, as well as a large butcher knife she kept in the drawer. He kept his finger to his lips, and they both heard it, the footsteps upstairs. They and he wasn't alone.

That pissed her off. On the field was one thing, in her home on her goddamn night _off_ was another completely.

They both took their places, her against the wall by the nook, shielded by the corner of the concrete wall, him by the door.

They waited quietly and sure enough the silent predator made his way downstairs, probably wondering where his mate had gone to. Bucky hit him first, a flat palm to the nose. She heard the distinct crack before he knocked him off his feet with a swipe, causing his AK to go off, forcing the couple to take cover to avoid being riddled. Just as they did four more men in masks barrelled down her narrow staircase and it was an all-out gun fight in her little two-up two-down in a dodgy street in Brooklyn. Peggy was well trained and she could take care of herself, but she had to admit, having him there fighting by her side gave her a thrill she wasn't expecting. He was, without the training she had received, without SHIELD to ship him into shape, having not fired a weapon in almost a decade … he was - she thought back to Zola's haunting word - though it was nothing if not fitting.

He really _was_ magnificent.

As she snapped the final man's neck and let him drop on her living room floor, she finally took a breath as Bucky took her stairs two at a time, before she went after him. They cleared out the rooms, but found the attic door open on the ceiling. They had been there, lying in wait.

Both of them winded, the adrenaline coursing through them, it took all her willpower not to jump him there and then. First she had to radio the clean-up crew; the six and a half minutes it took for them to arrive were the longest of her life, and Bucky's by the looks of him - pacing. She understood the pacing, it was a difficult thing, violence. It induced adrenaline, and there was an instinct in you that was so wholly unfamiliar and felt like home all at once. It was as if your body was itching for release again and again, the only way to truly achieve it though, was to fight your way out of it, or fuck your way out of it. And she knew the option she was aiming for with him.

Three nondescript men in white coats came and within seven more minutes, her home was put to rights. The bodies and the blood soaked carpeting all removed without so much as a hello. Peggy often mocked Stark for his ways, but this was one in which she was utterly impressed.

It left her and Bucky though, standing alone, a little unsure of what to do in the now empty sterile space. Both of them battered, bruised, and bloodied, and it wasn't until she had shoved him up against the living room door that he finally spoke.

"Oh thank Christ; I thought it was just me," he said before sucking a hot kiss into her neck, making her squirm.

"No, definitely _not_ just you. Take off your pants–" she gasped without so much a blush, needs must and all that.

She started in on his belt, yanking it hard so the metal made a sound on the now spotless wooden floor. His buttons were next, as he worked on pulling his blue sweater off, and starting roughly on his shirt buttons. Before she could slip off her stockings he had her grabbed tightly by her ass cheeks, pushing her against the wall, pushing her skirt up her thighs – his mouth never once leaving hers.

He ached for her in ways beyond the physical. He needed her then, her body, her mind, her words – just her. The empty pit in his stomach silent as she teased his earlobe between her teeth and he pushed inside of her. Little foreplay was necessary – apparently a good fight got Peggy going as much as it did him - and it was a frighteningly erotic thing to witness, Peggy Carter at her most feral.

Moving inside her, but knowing that she was in full control, did things to him. His spine was tingling as he held her against that wall as she hooked her ankles together and fucked him harder. Her lips on his neck, at his ear, her small breathless demands as they took to the floor at her insistence, it was all making his head spin. Grabbing her waist, her breasts, her hands, anything he could to anchor himself to the moment, the euphoric feeling of floating so real and dangerous. He hissed in pleasurable pain as she dug her nails into his chest as she rode him, dragging them from nipple to bellybutton with her head thrown back, her eyes shut and those amazing lips caught between her teeth. They came together – a first for them – the adrenaline induced sex was something else entirely and nothing he wanted to forget.

As they pulled apart, sweating and spent, she took in the bullet hole ridden apartment before her and said, "I'm never getting my deposit back from this place," before she laid down beside him on the hard, unforgiving wooden floor.

"I wouldn't think so," he said with a tired smile as she reached up and gently pushed some hair from his eyes.

"You let it get longer," she commented, touching his hair again, then petting his three day old scruff.

He just shrugged, annoyed at the blush he felt considering what they had just done together.

"Yeah, well you know, I didn't have anyone to impress so why not."

She smiled then, sadness in her eyes.

"Oh sweetheart, you do that regardless of what you look like. I'd say it's in your blood, being a charmer."

They fell into silence then, neither one willing to make the first move to a more comfortable environment.

"We have a lot to talk about, you and I," he whispered, pulling her up under his arm, her head automatically going to her spot on his chest, her hand on his belly. He trailed his fingers down her arm softly then when she nodded.

"We do, and we will, we'll … we'll sort this out, won't we?" There was hope in her voice once again, and he liked the sound of it as never before.

They would talk later. They would sort whatever the issues were between them _later_. Later; it was a great time for things you knew you had to do when all you wanted to do was curl up and sleep for the rest of your life.

As it turned out, sleeping one's life away wasn't such a hyperbolic statement or an uncommon issue as they would find out. Because, you see, as great as later was for them, it was also a time of great change and surprise.

You see, _later_, they and the world would find out that the impossible – much like sleeping one's life away - was, in fact, possible.

On February 4th 1952, Steve Rogers was found by Howard Stark and his crew.

On February 4th, Steve Rogers was found, _alive_.

* * *

>AN:<p>Dun, dun, duuuun. He's baack!<p>

I know this might sound redundant at this stage, but thank you for the love on me up here or on Tumblr if you're loving or loathing this, a girl likes to know ;) xo


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